The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has clarified that the new national identity card is a single, multipurpose card and not three separate cards.
NIMC’s Head of Corporate Communications, Kayode Adegoke, confirmed this in a note titled “Key Facts About the Proposed New General Multipurpose National Identity Card”.
On April 5, the commission announced that it had collaborated with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System to launch a new card with payment functionality for all types of social and financial services.
Part of the note read, “The new national ID card is a single, convenient, and general multipurpose card, eliminating the need for multiple cards—not three.
“The single GMPC has multiple use cases: payments/financial, government intervention/services, travel, etc.”
According to the commission, only applicants for the card will have to request it with their NIN through the self-service online portal, NIMC offices, or their respective banks.
It added that the card would be issued through the applicants’ respective banks in line with existing protocols for the issuance of debit and credit cards.