Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has reaffirmed the commitment of the federal government to the implementation of digital registration of all citizens and legal residents, which, in turn, will be linked to the civil registration of birth and death.
He stressed that Muhammadu Buhari’s government recognizes the potential benefits to government from the capacity for better forecasting, to greater accuracy with budgetary planning, enhanced security by overcoming the challenges of anonymity and, especially for citizen empowerment through the ability to be able to bring more of the excluded populace into an inclusive economic participation through digital identification of each and every citizen.
“This explains the Federal Government’s commitment to the digital registration of all citizens and legal residents, which, in turn, will be linked to the civil registration of birth and death.”
Professor Osinbajo, who spoke yesterday, November 23, at the graduation ceremony of the Senior Executive Course 41 of 2019 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru near Jos, the Plateau State capital, said that in 2015, “we began to harmonize existing databases of government bodies.”
He confirmed that so far, the harmonization process has increased the records of Nigerians in the central identity database from 7 million to more than 37 million.
“We are adopting an approach similar to the Indian Aadhaar model, aiming to provide all Nigerians with a unique identity by leveraging the existing enrolment facilities of Government Agencies such as the Immigration and the Federal Road Safety Commission, INEC, CBN (through BVN registration) and enforcing this enrolment of Nigerians for the National Identification Number (NIN) so that we have accurate and up-to-date information on our citizens.
“With a reliable data base of all Nigerians we are positioned to attain our aspirations for financial inclusion, delivery of social programmes to the remotest parts of the country, and the creation of more effective e-commerce opportunities.”
