Some residents of the Ibadan metropolis, on Tuesday, decried what they called their harrowing experience in the process of enrolling with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

Consequently, they have appealed to the federal government to review the act, establishing a commission for more effective operations.

In separate interviews in Ibadan, the residents seeking registration with the commission said the challenges faced in the registration process were enormous.

They called for more funding for the commission, stressing that most of its equipment needed to be upgraded to meet the current digital realities.

Jumoke Oloruntoba, a civil servant, lamented the difficulties she had been going through to enrol with NIMC owing to the hiccups experienced on the commission’s portal.

“I can tell you I have been on this for almost two weeks now, as I keep coming without getting anything done. It is always ‘no network’ anytime I come here (NIMC office).

“I think the federal government should review the law establishing the commission to remove all the hiccups usually experienced during enrolment,” said Ms Oloruntoba.

Israel Amarere, a teacher, lamented the stress he went through to get his enrollment done, saying that the commission needed to streamline its enrollment process.

“We know that NIMC accredits some centres to do the enrollment. But most times, they complain of a bad network or no network at all.

“The NIN enrollment software must be upgraded, given the importance of obtaining NIN in Nigeria now,” Ms Amarere said.

A student, Ayokunmi Ilesanmi, was at NIMC headquarters in Ibadan to correct some errors noticed in the arrangement of her name when she first did her registration.

“I hope to get it done soon because we are told that NIN is required to register SSS III students for the West African School Certificate (WASC) examinations,” she said.

Mr Ilesanmi appealed to NIMC to take the enrollment exercise to various secondary schools to save the students the harrowing experience of registering at the commission’s offices.

“Sometimes we miss classes just to get registered. But, if taking the enrolment to schools is considered, students’ traffic here will reduce, while the enrollment and issuance of registration slips will be easy and seamless,” she stated.

An official from the NIMC office in Ibadan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said most of the commission’s equipment needed to be upgraded to enhance better service delivery to the citizenry.

The official also appealed to the federal government to pay more attention to NIMC so it could carry out its mandate effectively and efficiently, as it was now mandatory to link NIN with all information about any individual.

“If the federal government can fund NIMC more to produce e-ID cards, even the poorest of the poor can have financial inclusion without necessarily having bank accounts.

“The conditional cash transfer can also be done through the e-ID card if the government is really interested in helping the poor,” the official said. 

(NAN)