The first set of lucky recipients would get theirs on September 30 as part of independence anniversary celebrations. According to the NIMC timetable, about 100 million Nigerians are expected to be issued the NIN within 30 months; the exercise is targeted for completion in 60 months.
We recall that a similar exercise in 2003 was announced with fanfare by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with the promise that the scheme “will help government in planning and to fight fraud and corruption”. Nothing of the sort was achieved. It was actually enmeshed in fraud and corruption. Even the plastic cards later issued as consolation turned out as an instrument in deception. Nothing of the features qualifies it as an ID – not to talk of a fool-proof one. More doubtful of course was the integrity of the data generated during that exercise.
We are not even aware that anything of substance was salvaged from the exercise that took billions of Naira from the treasury as well as millions of man-hours by long-suffering citizens to bring into fruition. As the NIMC would later confirm, the current exercise started from ground zero.
But this pales into insignificance compared with the scandal involving the sharing of $214 million in bribe among some powerful Nigerians. The bribe was allegedly given by SAGEM – the French firm that executed the national identity card contract. In the ensuing public outcry over the sleaze, the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Chief Sunday Afolabi (now late), Dr Muhammed Shata –then minister of state in the internal affairs ministry, Labour Minister Hussain Akwanga and Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo – all powerful members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were later arraigned for trial.
For inexplicable reasons, the charges against the personalities were later dropped.
For sure, the national identity card project isn’t just the nation’s Achiles heel; it has become the nation’s bottomless hole – consuming billions of Naira while offering nothing in return. Three decades of trials and serial failures after, the question this time is whether indeed the planned exercise can be any different from past attempts.
Now, this is not to question the merit of the exercise, both as a vital tool in national planning, and veritable instrument for national security. Nations far less endowed than ours have done it successfully – with far less per capita costs and yet with outstanding results.
Why then is the exercise nigh impossible here? The answers are not far-fetched: corruption, incompetence, bad faith and lack of patriotism by those charged with the business.
No one here suggests that the current exercise would fail. We only seek to remind the NIMC of the pitfalls of the past. Clearly, the exercise cannot be described as ambitious by any standards –the data being sought are actually the same set of data required in everyday transactions. They are available everywhere – in banks and other financial institutions, immigration services, the corporate affairs commission (CAC) as well as other agencies of government. The current efforts, in reality amount to integrating them into a handy tool for business transactions – the national ID that is increasingly indispensable all over the world.
We can only hope that it will succeed this time around and, more importantly, that its integrity would not be in doubt when it finally takes off.
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Quelle/Source: The Nation, 18.07.2011
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