Emma Okonji
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has assured all Nigerians of decongestion at all NIMC’s enrolment centres, following the revalidation and licence renewal of 96 Front End Partners (FEPs), who are private companies, licenced by NIMC to assist in enrolling Nigerians for their National Identification Number (NIN).
NIMC has over 5,500 enrolment centres across the country, but the centres are congested with large crowd of Nigerians who visit the centres for NIN enrolment on daily basis. In order to decongest the crowd, NIMC licensed over 200 FEPs to assist in NIN enrolment, a development that decongested the crowd at all NIMC centres nationwide, but the crowd resurfaced last year, after NIMC suspended all FEPs and asked them to reapply for revalidation re-issuance of operational licence.
Speaking at the just concluded management retreat organised by NIMC, which held in Eko Hotel, Lagos, the Director General of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, assured Nigerians that with the revalidation of 96 FEPs, congestion at NIMC’s enrolment centres would be highly reduced. She said with the revalidation of 96 FEPs, NIMC would be able to enroll between 20 and 25 million additional NINs by the end of 2024, to bring the total number of NIN registration to over 124 million by the end of 2024.
According to her, “We have heard and listened to the public outcry on some cases of extortion, through the offices of the FEPs and that is one of the reasons why, last year, we had to suspend them, to ensure that we close all loopholes for extortion. We have now gone through all that process successfully, to ensure that extortion is no longer possible in the system, by introducing the License Assurance Framework (LAF).”
Giving further insight about LAF, the Director, Business Development and Commercial Services at NIMC, Carolyn Folami, said LAF, represents a mechanism that would allow NIMC to be able to pay FEPs, exactly what they earn.
“We have engaged a couple of them and we have revalidated about 96 of them lately, and re-introduced them into the new system that we have built, which is trying to ensure the integrity of the data that we are bringing. We have had series of issues concerning data integrity, in terms of some FEPs doing some unwholesome activities. So we are bringing in LAF to ensure that all ends are tightened-up and we can have a one view of FEPs on-boarding from the beginning to when they are paid,” Folami said.
