Mkpe Abang, who was presented as Editor-in-Chief of an unknown IT & Telecom Digest, recently exhumed the phrase, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred,” in order to service a brief to label an opinion of this writer as “steeped in inaccuracies… deliberate malice, even untruth.”
It is necessary to expose his amateurish attempt to discharge a responsibility that he is unable to handle. He jumped into a fray in which he had little understanding, defending the indefensible.
Instead of addressing the substance of this writer’s opinion, which chronicles the failure of National Identification Management Commission to provide the permanent National Identification Card for an application of January 2018, Abang went on a tangent.
He devoted more than one-third of his rejoinder to how the presentation of a National ID Card for application for a Nigerian passport is the result of a Federal Executive Council decision and not a Presidential Executive Order.
He failed to query Gbenga Ifayefunmi, who heads the Ekiti State office of the NIMC, who had announced that the decision emanated from an Executive Order. Anyway, his selective amnesia is understood.
Ifayefunmi had told an audience that included the Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Bisi Egbeyemi, “By virtue of an Executive Order signed by President Buhari, you cannot obtain International Passport (sic) or Driver’s Licence (sic) without the National ID.”
This story was reported in several national newspapers, including The Punch, This Day, and The Nation, and neither the NIMC, the Nigeria Immigration Service, and the Federal Government, denied Ifayefunmi’s claim. Enough said; Abang’s intervention is a time-wasting distraction.
Abang’s goof shows he has not read the submissions of Drs. Elijah Oluwatoyin Okebukola and Abdulkadiri A. Kana: “Executive Orders are neither defined in the 1999 Constitution, nor interpreted in any legislation of the National Assembly, (but) may be lawmaking in disguise.”
Interestingly, Abang exhibited abject mischief by quarrelling with the argument that state agencies can visit inefficiencies on Nigerians by flashing Executive Orders that breach Section 58 of the 1999 Constitution, which assigns lawmaking to the 1999 National Assembly.
If Abang had visited the NIMC offices incognito, he could have observed that contrary to his claim that no NIMC office requires the Bank Verification Number for a National ID Card, it is actually the practice. But he chose to exhibit his crass ignorance in public.
Section 27(b) of the NIMC Act, quoted by Abang, provides that “As from the date specified… (for the mandatory use of the National Identification Number), the National Identification Number… must be presented for… opening of individual or personal bank accounts.”
The NIMC officers who routinely request the BVN before processing National ID Card applications would be wondering who enlisted Abang to deny the fact. They know they would not survive a session with a lie detector if they attempted to deny this practice, especially in front of TV crew and cameras.
As for whether the NIMC completed its registration processes with iMac computers, or not, the response to that will just be a big yawn. The important thing is that the NIMC uses computers with big screens in its operations.
And, even if he was a full-time member of staff of the NIMC, Abang should not have made the audacious claim that the NIMC office at the Alausa Central Business District has not experienced power outage since October 2017.
As the E-i-C of what-name-did-he-call-it magazine, he could not be a full-time member of staff of the NIMC. He would be breaching the Federal Government employment rules-unless civil service rules, which prohibit civil servants from engaging in private practice, have been abrogated.
To further put the feet of Abang and his paymasters into the fire, the following narrative states the experiences of another Nigerian, an avid reader of this column, who also fell victim to Abang’s NIMC.
“I arrived 15 mins ahead of (maybe an agent at the) Local Government Authority office at 11:15 am, and waited for him at the entrance to the premises. After pleasantries, l handed him a white envelope (containing what?).
“I followed him inside the courtyard, and he requested l waited for him while he went into one of the offices upstairs. He reappeared a few minutes later and asked me to ask for one (female employee) who had been briefed about my ‘mission.’ I climbed upstairs, and went into a crowded office with as many as a dozen applicants. I requested and met with a fair complexioned, well-dressed, lady in pantsuit.
“After I introduced myself, she beckoned me to a seat, and gave me a form to fill. After a few minutes, and having filled out the form, I informed her I didn’t know my BVN offhand, and she provided a number to dial on my phone to retrieve the required detail. She informed me that I would be “captured” as soon as it got to my turn.
“Due to the fluctuating network, and despite the fact that only two or three applicants were attended to, it took almost one hour before I took my turn. It took almost 40 minutes to complete the process due to poor network.
“Besides, the young chap was always on the (telephone) line with his friends. I raised my voice on the third occasion. His female colleague was all business-like, while he was still busy talking on the phone. (Somebody) apologised on his behalf, and compelled him to do likewise.
“In the meantime, a number of applicants were turned away due to the inability to supply their BVNs. Others, who came to collect original ID cards were also informed to come back in the future.
“Roughly 15 minutes after my registration, I was informed to ‘cough up’ N200 for lamination, and advised that it was not mandatory, but voluntary. The laminated NIMC temporary card was handed to me a few minutes later, having spent over two hours in a space no bigger than 4m x 5m, with an inner, but smaller, office containing a photo copier.”
This reader and Feyisetan Kareem, President of Change Maker’s Forum, who sent in a text message to say, “I have not got (my ID Card) after five years of registration,” are still waiting for their ID cards, like many other hapless victims of an insensitive state, to whom the Abangs of this world are apologists.
If Abang gains nothing from this narrative, he will have at least learnt that the BVN is requested by the NIMC from those applying for the National ID card, some NIMC staff treat applicants with disrespect, it could take a long time to obtain the ID.
Abang doesn’t know that Citizen Muda is actually this writer, who has yet to collect the permanent ID card after more than 17 months of registration, and not “a non-existent person,” as he wrongly concluded.
Why Abang chose to cry more than the bereaved must be the classic case of the idle seeking relevance. A friend suggested that Abang might be a mythical being created to do the dirty job that a schedule officer, who farmed out a dirty job, because his conscience would not allow him to defend the indefensible.
Abang should not shift the focus from the fact that citizens provide the BVN for the National ID card application, before waiting for a long time to collect it.
