7th December, 2016
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) says it registered 60,000 persons for the national identity cards in Borno in 2016.
Mr Zaman Yaksha, the state Coordinator of the commission, who told newsmen on Wednesday in Maiduguri on Wednesday, said that the enrollees were captured between January and November, amid security challenges.
“NIMC targets 7 million people across the states of the country.
“The NIMC enrollment in Borno, which was suspended early 2015 due to the security crisis, resumed in January 2016.
“We started enrollment since January 2016 with lots of challenges, especially inadequate funding.
“We don’t have offices in all the local government areas as expected so, this makes the registration centre in Maiduguri overwhelmed with people,” he said.
The coordinator, however, said that NIMC had four offices in Gubio, Gubio Local Government, Biu, Biu Local Government, University of Maiduguri and Sir Kashim Ibrahim College of Education in Maiduguri.
Yaksha explained that Gubio Local Government had provided a news office and furnished it for NIMC at adding that the office had commenced operations.
He said that children from birth to 16 years were now qualified to be registered unlike the previous policy which allowed only Nigerians from the age of 16 and above for the national identity card.
The coordinator urged Nigerians to key into the new opportunity and registers their children.
He also appealed to the people of the state to be patience with the registration centre in the state capital.
Yaksha assured them that NIMC was making efforts to open additional registration centres to step up the exercise.