The National Identification Management Commission (NIMC), in Rivers State has said that the commission now has functional offices in 12 local government areas of the state for the registration of potential enrollees for their national identity cards.
Making the revelation in an interview with The Tide in her office in Port Harcourt last Friday, the state Coordinator of NIMC, Mrs Olubunmi Soyoche, listed the registration centres to include Port Harcourt City Council, Obio/Akpor, Ikwerre, Degema, Khana, Etche, Eleme, Gokana, and Tai local government council headquarters, among others.
The state coordinator said that as part of the commission’s policy of reaching out to the grassroots in order to attract more Rivers people to participate in the enrolment process for their national identity cards, plans were underway to decongest already existing registration centres, with the opening of more offices in the remaining 11 local government areas of the state, before end of March, 2016, as well as extension of collection centres to the existing 12 registration centres.
Soyoche stressed that enrollees, whose national identity cards were ready could only collect same at the Aba Road Branch Office of the commission, which serves as distribution centre, and regretted the delay in the decentralization efforts of the commission, attributing it largely to the challenge of attacks by hoodlums, and armed robbers.
“Rivers people and residents of the state can access any of the centres closest to them to register for their national identity card, but can only collect same when it is ready at the distribution centre at our branch office at Aba Road,” Soyoche said.
She disclosed that the Federal Government decided to use the commission as the central hub for citizens’ bio-data capturing and enrollment to ease the burden of identification of Nigerians anywhere in the world, saying that the NIMC has already began the process of synchronizing the bio-data of Nigerians through the system.
The coordinator explained that the National Identity Cards contain all enrollees’ personal bio-data and other sensitive information, including those already captured in their international passports, drivers’ license, bank details, especially Bank Verification Number (BVN), mobile phone contact details, among others for easy identification and tracking, adding that the commission was collaborating with the telecommunications companies, banks, and government agencies, to achieve desired result.
Soyoche noted that the commission was doing its best to enroll all Nigerians, saying that since 2013 when the exercise began millions of Nigerians have been captured, stressing that as soon as more identity cards are received from Abuja, those whose cards are ready would be contacted to collect them at the distribution centre at the commission’s office on Aba Road.
She emphasized that although the commission has been trying to expedite the distribution of national identity cards by sending text messages to those whose cards were available for collection at their different points of enrollment, but further attributed the failure of some Nigerians to get SMS in their phones due to the frequent change of phone numbers different from the number they used for the registration.
The state coordinator added that as a more superior form of identification, the commission was being meticulous and careful to ensure that only cards of those whose bio-data have been fully integrated are released for distribution to affected enrollees, as the new national identity cards supersede other forms of identification for Nigerians.
According to her, the national identity cards were being released in batches across the 36 states of the federation including FCT, Abuja, and further advised those who have enrolled but have not received SMS for collection to check for the status of their national identity cards by logging in to: touch.nimc.gov.ng with their surname and first name and last eight digits on their temporary ID cards and come for collection if the get a message from the website that it is available.
She appealed to the media to assist the commission in sensitizing the public on the necessity to register for the National Identity Cards, saying that only the media can reach out to the rural communities and enlighten the populace on the need to participate actively in the exercise.
While stating that the turn-out has been encouraging, Soyoche appealed to those who are yet to register to visit any of the registration centres and complete the registration formalities.
It would be recalled that in order to combat criminality and economic crimes, as well as facilitate identification of Nigerians desiring to travel, registration in institutions or transact business, the commission Federal Government initiated the registration of all Nigerians under the National Identity Management Commission in collaboration with MasterCard to ease the identification of citizens anywhere in the world.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana