Adefioye Iyunade
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the transfer of the National Identity Management Commission to the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
A statement by the spokesperson to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Uwa Suleiman, said the transfer would ensure synergy, effective supervision and tracking of the progress of the Federal Government’s digital transformation initiatives.
According to the statement, the directives for NIMC to be under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is a demonstration of the President’s vote of confidence on the minister, Dr. Isa Pantami.
The statement explained that Pantami had within his first year in office resolved the communications sector’s decade-long dilemma of Right-of-Way charges.
The NIMC is mandated to create, manage, maintain and operate the national identity database established by the NIMC Act, 2007. So far, the commission has registered around 41 million eligible people for the National Identity Number.
The Nigerian Communications Commission on the other hand has details of over 191 million mobile subscribers.