Nigerian govt moves to link BVN to NIN

The Federal Ministry of Communications, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are working together, to ensure that Nigerians who have Bank Verification Number (BVN) also get the National Identification Number (NIN).

Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, revealed this when he visited different NIMC enrolment centres in Abuja yesterday.

Pantami observed that NIN was the only mandatory number and the primary identification of Nigerians over as every other identification.

He said, “The strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution.’’

According to him, the BVN only captured the data of Bank users while NIN is for every Nigerian.

“BVN is our secondary database, while NIN and the database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to NIMC”.

“That is why we came up with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation that we always enforce and this is applicable to the database at our disposal.

The Minister said the plan was to make sure sure that security is excellent, adding that anybody would be allowed to compromise the content because “it is a trust from our citizens given to us.’’