The House of Representatives has as the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure that foreigners are not registered in its on-going exercise towards issuing Nigerians the National Identity Numbers (NIN).
To this end, the Commission has been called upon to apply due diligence, and adequate security measures put in place to confirm the nationalities of persons seeking registration.
The House, while sounding the note of caution, also mandated its Committee on Interior to monitor the registration with a view to periodically brief the House on the progress made and challenges to the exercise.
In a motion, Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions, Uzor Azubuike (PDP Abia) drew the attention of members to the fact that even in Abuja, “some people with doubtful origin as Nigerians numbering more than 1,000 claim origin from any one native community outside the FCT and are enrolled as such, without further identification or verification.”
He argued that given the current security challenges being faced by Nigeria, and the presence of illegal immigrants helped by the nation’s porous borders, it is expected that the ongoing enrollment is done in a manner that should guard against registering foreigners as Nigerians.
The motion was unanimously adopted without debate and referred to the Committee on Interior for further legislative action.
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