The Federal Government says Nigerians can now request their commercial banks to issue them with a debit card which doubles as their national identity card at no extra cost.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami, who disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday, May 24, said the approval was obtained at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
Pantami stated that the approval followed a memo from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) allowing banks to print multipurpose debit cards that double as national identity cards.
“It is going to be a form of multipurpose card where it will serve as your national identity card on one hand and also your bank card on the other hand, either Mastercard, Visa or any other kind of card,” he said.
According to Pantami, although the NIMC Act 2007 only mandates Nigerians to have a National Identity Number (NIN) and not necessarily a printout card, demands for cards have swelled.
The minister added: “As in the NIMC Act 2007, section 27, what is mandatory for our citizens and legal residents is the acquiring of the National Identity Number, not the card. However, the card is optional.
“But many citizens, particularly those living in rural communities, always go to NIMC offices complaining that they need the card at hand, even though it’s optional.
“To make it easier, NIMC last year, we introduced a smart ID card you can download from NIMC app. It is just a smart card. You don’t need to have it physically, but that is becoming difficult for our people living in rural communities.”
To ease the difficulty, Pantami said NIMC has partnered with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), adding that citizens who are interested in having a card at hand can go to the relevant banks.
He noted that the bank is permitted to print the card along with either Mastercard or Visa card.
“It is going to be a form of multipurpose card that will serve as your national identity card on one hand and also your bank card on the other. And based on the agreement, it is without any additional costs on our citizens.
“So when you apply for a card at your bank, you can indicate that ‘I want this card to be multiple purpose where it will serve as my bank card and also my national identity card’.
”Both of them are going to be printed on the same card and it is going to serve the same purposes without any additional costs,” Pantami said.
The minister further disclosed that NIMC and the CBN signed a nondisclosure agreement to protect the privacy and confidentiality of card applicants.
Pantami said the FEC also approved a memo proposing the deployment of an automated system to integrate NINs with individual SIM cards.
The system, he noted, would consolidate the implementation of the NIN-SIM linkage.
Pantami said the automated system would sanitise the database and ease the process of SIM replacement for Nigerians or legal residents.