Due to a lack of government funding, the National Identity Management Commission states that Nigerians will be responsible for paying for the new multipurpose national identity card.
This was said by Dr. Peter Iwegbu, Head of Card Management Services at NIMC, during a two-day roundtable for journalists in Lagos.
On Friday, he stated that the payment was made to guarantee that it was only provided for people who required it.
According to Iwegbu, the choice was made to avoid making the same mistakes as previous attempts to give away free physical cards to Nigerians, which many did not pick up.
Iwegbu claimed that although the NIMC had previously attempted to provide free National ID cards, more than two million cards had been created, many of which had not yet been collected.
“The government’s limited revenue is also a major factor in the decision to make Nigerians pay for the new ID card,” he said.
Iwegbu clarified that the government’s inadequate revenue prevented it from funding the creation of ID cards.
Speaking as well, Mr. Lanre Yusuf, the Director of Information Technology at NIMC, stated that the free national ID card proposal had not worked out in the past.
According to Yusuf, the new ID card is a post-paid identity card, meaning that people must need it before they can apply for it.
“To get the new national ID card, Nigerians will need to make a payment, select a pickup location, and then collect their card from the chosen location.
“The new national ID card is a multipurpose card that can serve the purpose of identity verification, payments, and even government services,” he said.
The card, powered by AfriGO, was launched in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System.
