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The Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Aliyu Aziz, today in Abuja, officially briefed the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, on the commission’s activities as the digital identity agency kickstarts its formal movement to the ministry.
President Muhammadu Buhari in August approved the transfer of the NIMC to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. Until now, the commission operated directly under the presidency with the mandate to create, manage, maintain and operate the National Identity Database (NIDB) established by the NIMC Act, 2007.
Its transfer to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is expected to put some vim in Nigeria’s digitization process, particularly as the country begins an aggressive digital identity project with the support of the World Bank.
According to a statement by the ministry last month: “The transfer is part of efforts to ensure that synergy and effective ministry supervisory mechanism is put in place to coordinate, monitor and track the progress of federal government’s digital transformation initiatives.”
The statement further reads:
The approval for the transfer was based on Mr, President’s consideration for the critical role of NIMC towards the realisation of the objectives of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria (NDEPS).
“Furthermore, Mr. President’s directives for NIMC to be under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is an illustration of Mr. President’s vote of confidence on Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, based on an unprecedented performance. He has, within his first year in office, amongst others, resolved the ICT sector’s decade-long dilemma of Right of Way charges. He was also able to secure Mr. President’s approval for the provision of security as well as designation of telecommunications Infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure, regularization of improperly registered SIM cards and deactivation of unregistered ones, the deployment of over 250 digital projects across the country under his policies and supervision as well as built the capacity of over 36,000 Nigerians.
