By Martin Ekpeke
Sen. Ayodele Arise, a former Nigerian senator representing Ekiti North constituency, has raised an alarm, accusing the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) of losing focus on its core mandate of national identity registration and instead pursuing the issuance of multipurpose payment cards.
In an interview on Tech TV, Sen. Arise, Chairman of Card Technologies Limited and a pioneer in the card technology space, expressed deep concerns about the proposed multipurpose card. He argued that it would create unnecessary complications and potentially harm the Nigerian economy.
“Just like the Social Security system in the US, NIMC should just take the registration of Nigerians,” Sen. Arise stated. “The banks everywhere in the world are the ones issuing financial cards to their people. So NIMC is not going to become a financial institution, and I don’t see how they want to manage, you know, the fallout of this multi-purpose card.”
He highlighted several potential drawbacks, including the loss of revenue for state governments from driver’s license issuance and the logistical challenges of managing multiple bank accounts on a single card. Sen. Arise, who is reputed to have brought Mastercard to Nigeria, also raised serious security concerns.
“If somebody gets hold of one card and can crack into it, that person has cracked into your bank, has cracked into your details as an individual,” he warned.
The former senator criticized past attempts by NIMC to partner with banks on card branding, arguing that it created an uneven playing field for financial institutions. He strongly advocated for NIMC to concentrate on expanding national identity registration coverage, aiming to capture as many Nigerians as possible.
“The focus now should be, let us get as many people as possible registered, having the national ID, national number,” he emphasized, noting the significant portion of the population still unregistered.
He further argued that the current system, where individuals possess separate bank cards, driver’s licenses, and national identity cards, is efficient and aligns with international best practices. He questioned the logic of unifying all services onto one card, suggesting it would create unnecessary complexity.
“The person that has his debit card today can go to any bank collect money that does not disturb the fact that his card is in his pocket,” Sen. Arise stated. “And that card, you can put a BVN number on it, or the multi-purpose one, you can put a driver’s license number on it.”
While acknowledging that the government would not bear the direct cost of the multipurpose card as users would pay for it, he maintained that the initiative was unnecessary and potentially detrimental. He reiterated that the issuance of driver’s licenses should return to state governments to boost their internally generated revenue, and that the federal government should avoid centralizing services best handled at the state level.
“Let them focus on issuing national identity cards, and be sure that we can understand that that’s your national identity card,” he concluded, urging NIMC to refocus on its core mandate.