Of NIN and failure to apprehend criminals

LONG before the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) was saddled with the responsibility of giving citizens identity numbers, the National Population Commission (NPC) had spectacularly failed to have a credible database on births and deaths. Even the NIMC itself had false starts during the days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo when it was mired in serial controversies ranging from obnoxious procedures to financial mismanagement and leadership crisis. However, since the coming on board of the Muhammadu Buhari administration for a second term of office, some energy has been deployed in overhauling the process of giving identity numbers to Nigerian citizens. Lately, the administration has ordered the linkage of the National Identity Number (NIN) with mobile telephone numbers. It was thought that the daunting security challenges facing the country would be significantly curtailed or eliminated altogether if people could be traced from their mobile phones. That has sadly not been the case.

According to media reports, bandits have been thwarting the Federal Government’s regulations in the telecommunications sector. In Katsina, Zamfara and Kaduna states, victims who recounted their experiences in kidnappers’ dens said that they made the kidnappers’ telephone numbers available to security agents, but nothing was done to apprehend the hoodlums, thus making a mess of the directives on the registration of telephone subscribers and the linkage of SIM with the NIN. In 2015, the NCC had directed all telecommunications firms to deactivate unregistered or partly registered SIMs, saying that it aimed to ensure that all subscribers were traceable for security reasons. The directive issued to Nigerians last year to link their SIMS with the NIN had the avowed objective of ensuring that criminals could be tracked through their digital footprints. That objective has not been achieved.

In Southern Kaduna, which has suffered incessant attacks, residents said giving kidnappers’ phone numbers to the police had been an exercise in futility. According to the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), the SIM registration spearheaded by the Federal Government had not curtailed insecurity in the country. Security agencies attribute the ugly phenomenon to foreign abductors’ free entry into the country through the porous borders in the North-West. They claim that after successfully abducting people and collecting huge ransoms, criminals from Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Senegal, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic head back to their countries with their loot, returning to Nigeria after some time to carry out more abductions. A senior police officer involved in anti-kidnap operations was quoted to have said that “If you go to Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, we don’t have borders there. The borders are open and these people come in to abduct people and cross the borders with the money (ransom). The question is; what is the government doing to secure these open borders? Nothing, if you ask me.”

Besides, there are reports that the NIN has been made available to foreigners. Pray, why burden Nigerians with the linkage of their SIMs to their NIN while the NIN is being made freely available to foreign bandits and kidnappers? If one of the main reasons for the NIN is to be able to track down criminals, why hasn’t it been useful in the reported cases? Why leave the borders open to foreign outlaws while making life miserable for law-abiding citizens? If any Nigerian loses his/her mobile phone to thieves at the moment, such a person has to go through a rigorous process of tracing their previous SIM pack or going to court to obtain an affidavit, and queuing up for months at the offices of the telecoms companies before retrieving their SIM(s) at a cost. But while tightening the noose or law-abiding citizens, as it were, the government has given free rein to kidnappers and criminals of all hues to perpetrate their activities without let. This is, we dare say, a criminal abdication of duty.

It is unfortunate that the Federal Government has been reluctant to demonstrate enough political will to address insecurity in the country even when it has a tool like the NIN in its possession. It prefers to make life miserable for Nigerians by issuing deadlines on a registration that ought to be a continuous exercise. This is not how civilised societies are run.

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