Group Advises Tinubu To Stop New National ID Exercise.

Human Rights Writers Association has advised President Bola Tinubu, to discontinue the plans for the issuance of a new National Identity Card, describing the planned exercise as a misuse of public funds.

The group also said the plan showed a lack of national strategy, to formulate and implement beneficial public policies governing the issuance of the ID.

HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko in a statement said, on April 5, 2024, the National Identity Management Commission announced its collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System to launch a new card having multiple functionalities, including for social and financial services.

The management of the commission had also clarified in a note on Friday titled “Key Facts about the Proposed New General Multipurpose National Identity Card”, that the new ID card would be a single, multipurpose card and not three separate cards, while, HURIWA questioned how 133 million poor Nigerians suffering “crushing poverty”, will be compelled “to maintain working bank accounts to enable them to collect the so-called single National ID”.

The group urged the Government to rather adopt the International Passport as the most critical ID card.