Nextzon, Chams partner on new National Identity Management System Infrastructure

By Bankole Orimisan

For Nigerians to witness secured and sustainable identity management system infrastructure  in the country, Nextzon Business Service limited and Chams plc, has come together to implement a new (NIMSI) into the Nigeria environment.

    In expatiation on the significant of the identification, the Managing Director of Nextzon Business Services Limited, Macauley Atasie, said national identification number has been used by governments of many countries as a way of planning for employment, taxation, government benefits, health care and other related functions.

    Atasie, noted that initiatives will in turn enhance national security and delivery of essential public as well as private sector services.

    He added that the financial sector will also benefit as it will significantly help in fraud reduction and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes. Ultimately it will help minimize incidences of identity theft in Nigeria as the biometrics of the ten fingers of each enroller will be captured in the NIMS database.

    In his words the project is being implemented under a public-private partnership arrangement and supervised by the National Identity Management Commission and entails the enrolment of all Nigerians who are 16 years old and above.

    According to him the enrolment exercise will precede the issuance of unique National Identity Numbers and chip based identity cards.

    He pointed out that under the partnership arrangement;   Nextzon is responsible for bid assistance services to enable the consortium win the concession as well as the business modelling and process design required to set and operationalize the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) owned by the parties for this purpose.

  However, Nextzon has also incubated the SPV into an operational entity as well as help source the finance required for takeoff in collaboration with Liquid Africa, a South African based firm of financial advisors.

  “We are fully aware of the enormous financial resources required for the project against the backdrop of the 12-year concession granted to us to build, operate and transfer the front end components of the new national identity management system across states of the federation and the FCT. “We have secured take off funding and have reached advanced stages in sourcing the main funds required”, he stated.

    The Managing Director, Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo, commended the Federal Government for embracing the project. He described it as unfortunate the absence of a robust and viable national identity management system in Nigeria after 50 years of independence.

     According to him “for a country with over 150 million people and immense resources like Nigeria, the absence of a sound, secure and sustainable identity management system which will stand the test of time is regrettable. “We are therefore committed to the creation of a world class identity management system that would lead the way in the identity management for the people of this country”.

   He said they had completed the proof of concept phase of the project, the Consortium has now commenced the first phase of roll-out covering selected states of the 6 geographical zones.  This should culminate in full roll-out sometime in July/August this year.