Getting a National ID card takes up to 4 years in Nigeria: going digital will not solve the problem

In Nigeria, attempts at creating a National ID card dates back to 1986. After several decades and millions of dollars, the government is now looking to take the process digital

In Nigeria, getting any accepted means of identification can be difficult. A driver’s licence costs up to ₦10,450 ($27) while a Nigerian passport with 10-year validity is ₦70,000 ($181). While the pricing of these documents means many Nigerians cannot afford them, the process of getting them is still slow.

It is not unusual for public officials to demand bribes before you can get a passport or driver’s licence in good time.

The free alternatives to a national identification card are the voters card and the national identity card.

While the voters card is issued during election season, the national identity card is supposed to be issued all year long.

Yet, in five years, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has had trouble issuing cards to millions of people who have registered. Innocent Chizaram, a Nigerian writer shared in this opinion piece that although he registered for an ID card in 2016, he is yet to receive it.

This kind of experience is why many Nigerians do not have any form of identification. In June 2020, the Director-General of the NIMC, Aliyu Aziz said only 38% of Nigerians have any form of identification.

According to Aziz: “over 100 million Nigerians have no identity (ID). These include the poorest and the most vulnerable groups, such as the marginalised – women and girls, the less-educated people, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, people with disabilities and people living in rural and remote areas.”

Solving the Identification problem with the NIN

In 2007, the NIMC Act put the NIMC in charge of creating, managing, maintaining and operating a unified National Identity Database for Nigeria. The information the NIMC collects and stores includes biometric information, passport photographs and place of residence.

For each person who registers for the national identity card, a unique National Identity Number (NIN) is issued. This NIN is now tied to the Nigerian passport and there are plans to make it a requirement for students writing UTME examinations.

The NIMC is within its powers to do all of these. According to the NIMC Act, the registration and procurement of a National Identity Card is compulsory for all registrable persons in Nigeria. The registration is also free and has no age restrictions.

On paper, it sounds like the perfect solution to the problem. Yet, since 2007, less than 20% of Nigerians are registered on the National Identity database.

Many of the problems with the process can be traced to politics and a political process that has complicated what should be a non-issue.

A history of political problems surrounding NIMC

In 1998, Chams Limited, a Nigerian company won a $38.4 million contract to produce 52 million cards within four years. The project was off to a flying start, with Chams producing 1 million in 1999 while it waited for the Federal Government to buy some machines for the second stage of the contract.

While it waited, the government had other plans.

The Obasanjo administration handed over the contract to Sagem. In the end, Sagem was not able to produce all the cards required and the contract ended in a bribery scandal.

Chams on its part, went to court and won damages of $410,390. But the politics doesn’t end there: a back and forth between Chams and the NIMC meant that a concession agreement was not signed for years.

Yet, after it was signed, the contract would later be canceled in February 2015. Today, Chams is asking the Federal government to pay ₦44 billion ($113 million) in damages for lost revenue. Chams is also suing Mastercard for a breach of contract.

Nigeria’s national identity efforts have taken many turns and there is no immediate end in sight to the political problems plaguing the NIMC and the federal government. Now the government is hoping that digitising the process will lead to better outcomes.

Nigeria to dump plastic card in efforts to go digital

In August 2020, the government decided to move past the problems with the card process by focusing on digital cards.

According to the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Patami, the priority for the government is now digital cards.

“We are no longer talking about cards, the world has gone digital, so that card is no more. Our priority now is digital ID, it will be attached to your database wherever you are.

“So if you can memorize it by heart, wherever you go that central database domiciled with NIMC will be able to provide the number and every one of your data will be provided. Now, our focus is no longer on producing cards, that card is only for record but what is important is the digital ID, and if you notice we have started using the digital ID on the international passport. Once you have the digital ID but not the card, we are 100 percent done with you.”

Anyone unfamiliar with Nigeria would have been surprised by the announcement. In any other country, the first step would be fixing the persistent institutional and operational issues with the NIMC.

There’s only so much technology can do and like some states in Nigeria have shown, everytime you pitch politics against technology, the winner is always politics. It’s not a bold prediction to say that digitising the process will not solve a systemic problem.

NIMC’s digital process falls flat on its face in opening weekend

On August 15, there were pressers that the NIMC had begun its online process for national identification cards.

“First, you have to download the NIMC Mobile ID app, powered by its mobile services platform (MWS). Android users can visit the google play store to download and install the NIMC Mobile ID app. For iPhone users, they need to visit the app store to get the ios version of the app.”

-Technext 

Despite some initial excitement over the app, the problems began quickly, with a few people pointing out that the app was leaking private information.

Two days after, the app was pulled from the Google and ioS Playstore. The NIMC said the app was a “novel innovation” which was not yet approved for public consumption. It’s a poor excuse by the NIMC and is yet another sign that it has not solved the operational problems it faces.

It is worth asking why an app not approved for public consumption had access to the entire NIMC database housing the data of millions of people. It raises several privacy issues and litigation has now begun.

A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Law and Rights Awareness Initiative (LRAI), has now dragged the NIMC to court. According to this blogpost:

“NIMC also failed to file a data protection compliance audit report with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) before uploading the personal data of Nigerians on “their insecure software application.”

“The suit also seeks an order of perpetual injunction against the NIMC to halt them from releasing more digital identity cards of the NIMC or any other platform prior to an external independent review of the safety and security of the NIMC’s app.”

While the court process will be interesting to keep an eye on, a system that cannot manage the process of printing cards will hardly be competent at managing the complexities that come with maintaining millions of digital identities.

By Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega

 Tech Cabal

Nigeria to bar flights from countries that block Nigerians

Nigeria will blocks flights from countries that do not allow Nigerian flights to land due to coronavirus restrictions, Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said on Thursday.

“The principle of reciprocity will be applied,” Sirika told reporters. “If you ban us from coming to your country, the same will apply the other way.”

A spokesman for the minister said Sirika was referring to landing rights for aircraft, and not the nationals of the countries.

The director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority said that authorities were still drafting the list, but added that the European Union was among those barring Nigerians.

Nigeria earlier this week announced plans to resume international flights on Aug. 29. All but essential international flights were halted in late March in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

The resumption will begin with four flights daily coming in to both Lagos and Abuja, but Sirika said that initially the number of passengers would be limited to 1,280 a day.

Nigeria has 50,488 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 985 deaths.


Reuters

Nigerian man, 50, extradited from Canada to face U.S. fraud charges for alleged sweepstakes scam

A Nigerian citizen living in Canada was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face federal charges after allegedly taking part in a scheme to defraud thousands of victims of hundreds of millions of dollars.

American investigators allege the 50-year-old man was part of a conspiracy to run a fraudulent "sweepstakes" scheme designed to steal a total of $300 million U.S. The alleged fraudsters were able to defraud their victims of a total of $900,000 U.S.

A federal grand jury indictment, returned in September 2018, charges the man with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Each count upon conviction calls for up to 20 years in federal prison.

According to the indictment, the defendants carried out their sweepstakes scheme from 2012 to 2016.

Elderly victims targeted

The man allegedly purchased lists of elderly potential victims and their addresses from an email service provider. He and other conspirators based in the Toronto area, sent packages containing fraudulent sweepstakes information to conspirators living in the U.S.

The packages contained thousands of mailers, which the U.S.-based conspirators sent to victims notifying them that they had won a sweepstakes contest.

Each mailer included a fraudulent cheque issued in the name of the victim, usually in the amount of $8,000, and a pre-addressed envelope.

Victims were instructed to deposit the cheque into their bank account, immediately withdraw between $5,000 and $7,000 dollars in cash or money orders and send the money to a "sweepstakes representative" to facilitate the victim collecting his or her prize.

By the time the victim was notified by the bank that the deposited cheque was fraudulent, the cash or money order had been sent by the victim and received by alleged conspirators.

The man, who remains in federal custody pending his initial appearance in Austin, Texas Friday afternoon, is one of eight defendants charged in connection with this scheme.

Despite the fact that the man was living in Canada, U.S. special agents were able to track him down — something they attribute to their strong relationships with international law enforcement agencies.

CBC

Related stories: Police rescues American lady locked in Lagos hotel after fake marriage, arrests Nigerian

The Hushpuppis And Nigeria’s Image

Nigeria's wet markets thrive despite coronavirus pandemic

Just a few months after Epe Fish Market was under lockdown to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, vendors at the site in the southern Nigerian state of Lagos are back buying, selling and trading animals.

A vendor descales an endangered pangolin with a machete. Nearby, grasscutter rodents are skinned. Most of the sellers wear masks.

Experts say COVID-19, which has killed around 1,000 people in Nigeria, jumped from animals to humans, possibly at a wet market in China. But few in Epe were worried.

"We are not afraid of it because the coronavirus is not inside the meat," said vendor Kunle Yusaf. "We do eat the meat, even during this coronavirus, and we do not have any disease."

University of Cambridge epidemiologist Dr Olivier Restif called for more education around safe animal trade and hygiene.

"We're very concerned with the risk that it poses," he said of markets where live animals are kept in close quarters. But he warned that simply banning markets could alienate people and drive trade underground.

The WWF International wildlife charity said the pandemic "should be a wake-up call." But the booming trade at Epe illustrated unchanged attitudes despite the nearly 800,000 killed worldwide by the virus.

Nigeria is also a hub for illegal wildlife trade to Asia.

Nigeria's National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) did not respond to requests for comment.

The WWF said the economic strain of the pandemic has sapped conservation budgets in many countries.

Chinedu Mogbo, founder of Green Fingers Wildlife Conservation Initiative, a wildlife sanctuary near Epe, hopes to encourage Nigerians to cut bushmeat consumption and avoid animal-based traditional medicine, which can fuel the unhygienic animal handling that can aid virus transmission.

"I believe they will appreciate them more, coming up close to see them," Mogbo said.

By Angela Ukomadu and Libby George

The Chronicle Herald

Armed fighters take hundreds hostage in Nigeria's Borno state

Armed fighters have taken hundreds of hostages in a northeast Nigerian town where residents had only just returned after fleeing their homes, residents and militia sources said on Wednesday.

The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group, a splinter group of Boko Haram, overran the town of Kukawa in Borno state late on Tuesday, the sources told the AFP news agency.

They seized residents who had returned to the town in a government operation on August 2, after spending nearly two years in displacement camps, said Babakura Kolo, head of a local militia.

"The terrorists attacked the town in 22 trucks around 4:00 pm (16:00 GMT) yesterday and engaged soldiers guarding the town in a fierce battle," he said.

Kukawa's residents had returned to their homes just 16 days earlier under military escort, on the orders of the Borno state authorities.

They had been living in camps in the regional capital Maiduguri, 180km (120 miles) away, where they fled following a bloody attack in November 2018.

A town chief who accompanied the residents to the town said the people had returned with the hope of cultivating their farmlands "only to end up in the hands of the insurgents".

"We don't know what they would do to them but I hope they don't harm them," said the chief, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons.
Squalid refugee camps

A security source who confirmed the incident to AFP said fighter jets were deployed from Maiduguri on Wednesday to "tackle the situation", but did not give further details.

The decade-long conflict in northeastern Nigeria has forced more than two million people out of their homes, most of them from the northern part of Borno.

Many have moved into squalid displacement camps in Maiduguri, where they rely on handouts from international charities.

In the last two years, local authorities have been encouraging the displaced to return home, despite concern by international charities that this is not safe.

Residents have been returned to five major towns since 2018, where they are confined under military protection, with trenches dug around to try to fend off attacks.

Despite the fortifications, the armed fighters have continued to launch attacks.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been carrying out attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring countries in the Lake Chad region, with no signs of slowing down despite counterattacks by a joint multinational force across borders.

Boko Haram has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the abduction of thousands of others, including hundreds of schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014.

In 2015, Boko Haram split, giving way to the formation of ISWAP, which has pledged allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) group.

Since then, ISWAP has also gone on a spree of violence, attacking government forces and carrying out abductions and extortions.

The key strongholds of the armed groups are located in southern and southwestern regions of Lake Chad, the confluence of the borders of four African states - Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Al Jazeera