NIGERIANS who have Bank Verification Number, BVN, may be relieved from the bottle-necks, that have characterized the NIN registration. Government plans to provide them with their National Identification Number through their BVN. Nigeria ministry of communications and digital economy; national identify management commission; and the central bank of Nigeria are collaborating to achieve this objective.
Isa Pantami, minister of communications and digital economy, made this known during visits to different national identify management commission enrolment centres, in Abuja, on Monday. He noted that NIN was the mandatory number and primary identification for Nigerians, over every other identification.
NIMC Act 2007, he said, provides that all citizens must be enrolled. The law gave 60 days to enrol, from the time the law was enacted; and maximum of 180 days. Permanent residents in the country, and legal residents that had to stay in Nigeria, must be enrolled within minimum of 24 months.
Pantami said he had discussed with CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, on the need to ensure all citizens with BVN, immediately, migrate to NIN. According to the minister, work is in progress on it. But facilitating the process lies with the CBN, to make it much easier for Nigerians.
During a presentation he made to the National Economic Sustainability Committee, Pantami said, he drew the CBN governor’s attention to the need to replace the BVN with NIN, due to the fact that the BVN is a bank policy, while NIN is a law.
