President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the transfer of the National Identity Management Commission to the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
Approval for the transfer was based on the President’s consideration of the critical role of the NIMC towards the realization of the objectives of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria.
This was disclosed in a statement entitled, “President Buhari approves the transfer of NIMC to the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy,” issued on Monday by the spokesperson to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Uwa Suleiman.
The ministry explained that the transfer would lead to synergy and effective ministry supervisory mechanisms to coordinate, monitor, and track the progress of the Federal Government’s digital transformation initiatives.
“Furthermore, Mr. President’s directives for NIMC to be under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is an illustration of Mr. President’s vote of confidence on Dr. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy,” the statement said
The statement went ahead to list some of the achievements of the Minister. These include the fact that within his first year was able to resolve the communications sector’s decade-long dilemma of Right-of-Way charges.
The statement added that Pantami had also succeeded in securing President Buhari’s approval for the provision of security as well as the designation of telecommunications infrastructure as critical national infrastructure.
The NIMC has a statutory mandate to create, manage, maintain, and operate the national identity database, as established by the NIMC Act, 2007.
Pursuant to this objective, NIMC has registered about 41 million eligible enrollees for the National Identity Number.
On its part, the Nigerian Communications Commission has details of over 191 million mobile subscribers.
Similarly, the National Information Technology Development Agency, which is a unit under the ministry, has recorded some success in the development and implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, the country’s first codified data protection regulation.
NITDA has also reached an advanced stage in the implementation of the National Public Key Infrastructure.
It added that Galaxy Backbone Limited was also providing services to government agencies, such as infrastructure, software, etc.
“The need therefore for NIMC, NCC, NITDA, and GBB to work closely together under the supervision of one ministry towards harnessing what has already been achieved cannot be overemphasized,” government declared in the statement.
