Seven years after its inception and with a huge amount of money already allocated to it by the federal government, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is yet to meet its mandate of capturing all Nigerians on its database and issuing them with valid identity cards, clearly setting the stage for an unending journey to the national identity card programme, as was the case with its predecessor, the\u00a0 Directorate of National Civic Registration.<\/em><\/p>\n Although it was officially set up in 2010 and empowered to capture all Nigerians into a database and issue them with permanent national identity cards, the\u00a0National Identity Management Commission( NIMC) has only been able to scratch the surface of the assignment so far.<\/strong><\/p>\n As a clear sign of its inability to carry out the task of identifying all Nigerians and issuing them with national identity cards for the purpose of planning and development and improving national security, NIMC has largely been making more noise than taking concrete actions to deliver on its mandate.<\/p>\n For instance, while it has within seven years received a whopping N80.2 billion from the federal government, the commission has only been able to capture about 25 percent of Nigeria\u2019s 180 million population into its database while not more than five percent of those captured have been issued with the National Identification Number (NIN), which is soon to become a compulsory document for all Nigerians residing in the country.<\/p>\n
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