The Nigerian government is planning to replace the current Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) with the National Identity Numbers, it announced Monday.
Dr. Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, said this to journalists after a visit to telecom operators and NIN licensees in Abuja.
Pantami disclosed he had informed President Muhammadu Buhari about the ongoing NIN registration, adding that the Nigerian leader was impressed with the exercise.
He had also briefed the National Economic Sustainability Committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the imperative of replacing BVN with NIN.
Explaining on the inadequacies of BVN, Pantami noted that it was for only for accounts holders of banks, NIN will cover all Nigerians.
“The challenge is that the BVN records may not be 100 percent the same with NIN but what is most important is that the NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizen, including legal residents.
“BVN is a policy of a bank and has not been established by law, NIN is the only mandatory number and the primary identification of our citizens and every other identification is secondary.
“The NIMC Act 2007 provides that all our citizens must be enrolled and the law gives them 60 days to enroll from the time the law was enacted and a maximum of 180 days and all permanent residents in the country and legal residents that have to stay here for a minimum of 24 months must be enrolled.
“So this is the primary identification of all and all other databases are supposed to utilize this and not for NIN to utilize the BVN, because it is the primary one,” the minister explained.
Nigeria is currently integrating individuals’ NIN with their mobile phone numbers.
“We discussed with the CBN Governor today on how to ensure that all our citizens with BVN will immediately be provided with the NIN. We are working on that but facilitating the process lies on CBN to make it much easier for our people.”
Explaining further, Pantami said that he had made a representation to the National Economic Sustainability Committee, drawing the attention of the CBN Governor to the need for BVN to be replaced with NIN, for, according to him, “BVN is a bank policy while NIN is a law”.
“Because it has been established by law so the strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution.
“Also, BVN is only applicable to those who have bank accounts but NIN is for every citizen and legal residents in the country. BVN is our secondary database while NIN and the database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to NIMC.”
