A former Director-General/Chief Executive, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that the National Identity Card does not qualify anybody to be a Nigerian.
Onyemenan, currently Head, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Baze University, also disclosed that National Identity Number (NIN) is only meant to get a unique identification number for everybody and to prevent criminality and multiple identity.
He made these revelations recently during the 2021 Annual Lecture and Conference of the Department of Sociology held at the University of Lagos recently under a theme, Nigeria’s Data Challenge.”
Among others, a former Statistician-General of the Federation, Prof. Vincent Akinyosoye; Director General, National Population Commission, Dr. Ghaji Bello and Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Prof. Ndukaeze Nwabueze spoke at the conference.
Speaking at the conference on “Unique Identification Project in Nigeria: From Despair to Audacity of Hope,” Onyemenan disclosed that no fewer than 51.3 million persons had already registered for the NIN nationwide.
He acknowledged that since the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the successive governments in the federation had accorded NIMC deserved recognition and given commensurate support for seamless operations.
Onyemenan said the NIN project would help the governments “to get data right, stressing that foreigners could enroll because having NIN does not mean that they are Nigerians.
Bello, NPC’s director-general, corroborated Onyemenan’s claim, admitting that the data framework in Nigeria “is not on the same level as in other climes where census is held every ten years.”
The director-general, however, pointed out that the NPC had been working with both Senate and House of Representatives “to ensure that the lawmakers conduct another census as soon as the President approves it.”
Akinyosoye equally explained the significance of data, which according to him, was very central socio-economic development and planning at virtually all levels.
He, therefore, emphasised the need “to educate the government to know the importance of statistics and use modern statisticians to collect their data.
“There is the need to lobby and convince the policy makers on the importance of data. Convince the Senators and the members of the House of Representatives to learn to be very proactive. Many of the politicians do not know how to spend money for the benefit of Nigerians.
“Let me tell you that the money goes to the private pockets. They do not use the money for development. that is why we are still at the primitive level of development,” former statistician-general of the federation observed, lamenting rots in the system.
Also at the conference, Nwabueze said he was “not under any illusion that the NIN can change hands for citizenship. But the main question is this: What is the thing that will distinguish a Nigerian from a non- Nigerian?
“If we get this number and it does not help us to distinguish a Nigerian from non-Nigerian, we still have a millage to cover. So, the person who was advising us is a founding director general of NIMC.
“He knows what he was talking about. He was the one that laid down all the structures that they met on ground. By the time he was doing it, he was a Ph.D student here in University of Lagos. He has completed his tenure and he is doing some other things in life,” he explained.
He added that so many people would now be surprised because many Nigerians thought that once you have the NIN that you are a citizen of Nigerian.
He lamented that many foreigners, who had streamed into the country, would automatically become Nigerian citizens in the process of doing any registration.
He explained that the situation “is already messed up. Don’t forget we are in a presidential system. You see part of the drawbacks in the presidential system is that so much power or authority is entrusted with one person – the president.
He lamented that President Muhammadu Buhari “has taken the agenda of the Fulani nation to a high level now. So, people have been calling for devolution of power. In Kenya, now the President and the vice-president are elected in a separate election. It strengthens their political system. We have made our constitution so rigid.
In his presentation, Dr. Lekan Oyefara, an Associate Professor of Sociology, Demography and Population Health, University of Lagos, said the Sociology Department decided to put the lecture together because of the problem of data that had become an issue across the federation.
As a demographer, according to Oyefara, we all know that data is very important for planning. We need accurate decisions concerning development in Nigeria in all sectors, be it education, aviation health, agriculture and education planning or housing.
He said: “What we have in Nigeria is that we have some activities and planning not well coordinated. As a result, we have various types of these programmes.
“We decided to put this particular program together so as to sensitise the governments at different levels about the necessity to put in place appropriate measures to generate data that can help in planning.
“We are also saying that the private sector should also make use of data in their social responsibilities to the communities. With this, we believe strongly that the needs of Nigerians will be met through adequate data. Effective programs will be put in place to address the challenges of Nigerians.”
