The National Identity Management Commission says Nigerians will have to pay for the new multipurpose national identity card due to limited government revenue.
The Head of Card Management Services at NIMC, Dr Peter Iwegbu, said this at a two-day roundtable organised for journalists in Lagos.
He said on Friday that the payment was to ensure that it was produced for only those who needed it.
Iwegbu said the decision was made to avoid repeating the mistake of the past efforts to issue physical cards to Nigerians for free, which many did not collect.
Iwegbu said over two million cards were produced in a previous attempt to issue free National ID cards by the NIMC, but many of them had not been collected to date.
“The government’s limited revenue is also a major factor in the decision to make Nigerians pay for the new ID card,” he said.
Iwegbu explained that the government could not fund the production of ID cards due to limited revenue.
Also speaking, the Director of Information Technology at NIMC, Mr Lanre Yusuf, said the idea of a free national ID card did not turn out well in the past.
Yusuf described the new ID card as a post-paid identity card, which meant that individuals must need the card before initiating a request for it.
Yusuf added that the NIMC had partnered with banks for Nigerians to request and collect their cards from any bank branch to facilitate a seamless experience.
“NIMC is working with banks across the country, which will make it possible for people to walk into any bank closest to them and request the card.
“The new national ID card is a multipurpose card that can serve the purpose of identity verification, payments, and even government services,” he said.
The card, powered by AfriGO, was launched in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System.
The card will be enabled for all government interventions and services across multiple Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
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