The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, expressed displeasure over the flagrant disregard to extant financial regulations by the management of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
Chairman House Committee on Diaspora, Hon. Tolulope Sadipe who expressed concern over the inability of NIMC Director-General, Abubakar Aziz, to justify the imposition of $50 fees on Nigerians in Diaspora against the official fee of $47.
Hon. Sadipe also took the NIMC Director-General to task for awarding data capturing contracts to private organizations considering the security implications of such decision.
According to her, “It is a national security issue. A lot of Nigerians refused to get registered because of the sensitivity of the information you’re gathering which you sub-contracted to an outside agency”.
ALSO READ: No Nigerian president has surpassed Obj in foreign trips ― Oshiomhole
While responding to various queries raised by the lawmakers, NIMC Director-General, who disclosed that the commission has not been receiving budget for Diaspora capturing exercise over the past four years except the annual envelope, argued that the commission requires funding to deploy enrollment of Nigerians outside Nigeria.
Mr. Aziz who affirmed that some licensed companies have commenced data capturing of Nigerians in Diaspora observed that over 1,627 Nigerians have so far been captured.
He also stressed that the Commission has embarked on recertification of the data centers with the view to ensure its security.
According to him, “we don’t have facilities to capture biometrics. We partner with foreign license companies. Over 1,627 persons have been captured outside Nigeria. Even in Nigeria, NIMC has not been able to capture all. We require facilities to carry out this capturing
“The National Identification Number (NIN) doesn’t confirm citizenship. It’s only for identity,” the NIMC Director stated, adding that the Commission has reduced the data fields from 83 to 10.
He added that Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) is involved in the registration exercises carried out by the Commission and Nigeria
and then