FG will replace BVN, others with NIN – Pantami

The Federal Government is in the process of replacing the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and other data collected by data collecting institutions with the National Identity Number (NIN), the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami has said.

Pantami disclosed this after monitoring the NIN enrolment process at telecom operators’ offices in Abuja on Monday.

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“I Made a presentation to National Economic Sustainability Committee and I drew the attention of CBN Governor that we need to replace BVN with NIN because the BVN is a bank policy while NIN is a law because it has been established by law so the strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution”, the minister said.

He said the NIMC database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to.

He said: “On the board of NIMC, CBN governor is a member, DG DSS is a member, Chairman of FIRS is a member, INEC Chairman, Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), National Population Commission and the Nigeria Immigration Service are all members of the board and this is to show you that it is primary database that every institution in the country should make reference to, when it comes to data protection regulations, we are in the forefront in Africa today”.

He said with NIMC database, the level of security is 99.9 percent.

According to him, there is no database that is 100 percent secured, “the highest you can go, I think we are there”.

He said FG came up with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation to guarantee safety of all data collected in the country.

He said: ” At our disposal, we take care of data and make sure that security is excellent and we don’t allow anybody to compromise with the content because it is a trust from our citizens given to us.”

Meawhille, at the MTN office in Maitama, Pantami was told that people who had enrolled before couldn’t have their data verified on the database, but the minister said the federal government was working to fix the issue.

“We are working on that, they are being verified but it is slow due to the high numbers of request. We are working on coming up with one verification and we do hope that the issue will be resolved soon”, he said.