National ID won’t replace INEC voter card – NIMC

The National Identity Management Commission on Friday said there were no plans to replace voter cards issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission with the electronic national identification cards.

It said this while denying reports in the media (not The PUNCH), which claimed that the Delta State Coordinator of the NIMC had stated that the national ID would replace INEC-issued voter cards in 2019.

The Head, Corporate Communications, NIMC, Chika Ogbonna, said that the reporter quoted the state coordinator out of context.

Ogbonna said that the electronic ID card issued by the NIMC had a number of applets built into it, which made it capable and available for use in up to 13 use cases and scenarios.

“But at no time during the advocacy visit by our Delta State team to the royal father did the state coordinator announce that the eID card would replace the voter’s card presently issued and used for elections by INEC,” he said.

“The state coordinator did not grant any press briefing or interviews during the visit, neither was she at the palace to make any announcement concerning any elections,” Ogbonna said.

He said the primary reason for the visit was to seek the support of the royal father in the renewed drive by the new NIMC Director-General, Aliyu Aziz, to increase the number of enrolment for the National Identification Number.

“The visit was also to brief him on the collaboration between the NIMC and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to uniquely register and issue NIN to farmers in Delta State under the National Agricultural Payment Initiative,” he said.

“The NIMC and INEC are both working harmoniously with other data-collecting agencies of government towards the aggregation of all citizens’ biometric data in order to achieve a single national database as directed recently by the President. Both commissions of government are in partnership now to that extent,” Ogbonna added.