The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has made it clear that Nigerians have to pay for the new multipurpose national identity card, because of limited government revenue.
The Head of Card Management Services at NIMC, Dr Peter Iwegbu, revealed this while speaking to journalists in Lagos.
He said on Friday that the payment was to ensure that it was produced for only those who needed it.
Iwegbu said the decision was made to avoid repeating the mistake of the past efforts to issue physical cards to Nigerians for free, which many did not collect.
Iwegbu said over two million cards were produced in a previous attempt to issue free National ID cards by the NIMC, but many of them had not been collected to date.
“The government’s limited revenue is also a major factor in the decision to make Nigerians pay for the new ID card,” he said.
Iwegbu explained that the government could not fund the production of ID cards due to limited revenue.
Also speaking, the Director of Information Technology at NIMC, Mr Lanre Yusuf, said the idea of a free national ID card did not turn out well in the past.
