Confusion within

By Tunji Adegboyega

One of the things that epitomise the confusion in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is the directive that Nigerians must have their SIM cards synchronised with their National Identity Numbers (NIN) latest by the end of last month. The policy was to take off barely two weeks after it was announced, while subscribers who could not meet the deadline risked their phone lines being blocked. Public outcry against the sudden take-off of the policy made the government to give three weeks extension for Nigerians with NIN from December 30, 2020, to January 19, 2021; and six weeks extension for subscribers without NIN, from December 30, 2020 to February 9, 2021.

Since then, neither the workers of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), who have now been forced to operate beyond capacity, nor the average Nigerian seeking a way out of the quagmire the government policy had put him, rested. NIMC offices and newly designated enrollment centres were besieged by Nigerians in a way that put many people at risk of contracting COVID-19, thus making not a few people suspicious about whether the government is really serious about fighting coronavirus.

While, on the one hand, the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 is harping on the need for Nigerians to adhere strictly to COVID-19 protocols, which social distancing is an essential part of, another government agency, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), on the other hand was threatening to suspend telephone lines of subscribers who do not link their phone lines with their NIN before the expiration of the deadline. Even with the extended deadline, it is still as impossible as making the camel pass through the eye of a needle, giving that this is something the country has not been able to do in over 40 years!

Curiously, however, the NCC came out just last Thursday to say that there was nothing like mass disconnection of telephone lines over NIN, more than three weeks after the initial announcement, which sparked off the mad rush for the elusive number. The commission told us what we have always known, that the attempt to link SIM registration records with NIN was aimed at enhancing general safety and helping the government to plan. As usual, the media was the fall guy for NCC’s volte-face: most of the speculations in some sections of the media “are based on the erroneous assumption that for every network or SIM connection, there is one unique human subscriber”. Even if some sections of the media speculated wrongly on such a sensitive matter, it should not have taken the NCC this long to debunk the speculation, especially given the panic and commotion it has generated among Nigerians in this COVID-19 second wave period.

No one is saying a national identity card is a bad idea. But, successive Federal Governments are to blame that we are in the kind of situation where millions of Nigerians have to besiege various enrolment points simultaneously for something people should ordinarily do as routine at their leisure. Even when government said people should register, it neglected the workers that are to do the job such that they now have to down tools. Among others, the workers are unhappy with the exposure of staff members to COVID-19, their salary structure, and what they called irregularities in the conduct of promotion exercise. The workers also want better welfare packages, more allowances for the registration of NIN, which they described as an extra duty. Above all, they want protective kits at their offices, the lack of which leaves them exposed to contracting the coronavirus disease as they attend to crowds seeking NIN daily.

This last aspect of protective kits was missing when I wrote on this matter last month, and I am happy about the oversight. I would not be surprised if government had accused journalists who point at this anomaly of instigating the strike, as if those directly concerned are incapable of rational reasoning. This is the stock in trade of successive Nigerian governments: rather than admit the lack of rigour when they come up with incongruous policies, they start looking for fall guys when those policies backfire. It is just that we are not a litigious people; hence we take things like this ignorantly and with levity. And our governments are aware of these weaknesses, and therefore take undue advantage of them. I say this because it is not only the NIMC workers who should be protected, even Nigerians who must gather in their hundreds for NIN (when government is discouraging such gatherings elsewhere) also need to be protected. If we were litigious, some people would have challenged this policy that puts their lives at risk in court.

The point is that most Nigerian workers have now realised that the only weapon they have is the strike option because that is the language most Nigerian authorities understand. For NIMC workers, there is no better time to down tools than now, that their services are in hot demand. This is a commission that should be bubbling all the year round because of the nature of its assignment. But many people are just beginning to know it exists because of the no-NIN-no-phone policy that we are now being told never was. Just a few days ago, some of the NIMC workers were sacked in some states for alleged extortion. For God’s sake, who created the opportunity for extortion? While not supporting people taking advantage of fellow citizens, there would have been little chance for such if getting NIN had been as seamlessly routine as it should be. What is more worrisome now is that not only are the workers’ welfare not attended to, they are also forced to attend to crowds, despite the COVID-19 protocols. Many doctors and other health workers have died of COVID-19 as a result of inadequate protective kits. I suspect lack of tools is also part of the reasons we have not made much progress on the national identity card project until recently. Nigerian governments have a penchant for such tendencies. We have examples all over the place: research institutes that have allocations for overheads for years with nary provision for research, to mention just one.

This is a time when many companies have asked their workers to work from home if it is not compulsory for them to be in the office. Unfortunately, it is also the time that government had to come up with a policy that exposes some of its own workers and the generality of Nigerians to COVID-19. What a bundle of contradictions?

The workers should insist on their rights. Good life is not an exclusive preserve of a few privileged Nigerians. Those in leadership positions who are appropriating all manner of allowances to themselves are doing so because of ‘surplus’ funds they see all over the place. And these ‘surplus’ funds exist because Nigerians are generally minimalists who do not insist on getting their own fair share of the national cake.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has blamed the end-of-year festivities for the spike in coronavirus cases in the country. That may only be partially true. Has anyone tried to find out the contribution of this phone and NIN policy to the spike? Sure, some, if not many of the cases would have occurred as a result of the crowds we see queuing for NIN, unless coronavirus is not what we have been told it is, or unless it is exaggerated. As a matter of fact, if we are to treat this matter as government has treated other situations since COVID-19 broke, all the NIMC workers and those who have been going for the enrollment since last month, their families and whoever they had come in contact with should be in isolation for the mandatory period by now, even if they did not test positive for COVID-19. That is what government policy has brought upon its hapless workers and citizens. At least that is the impression of how grave the COVID-19 matter has been portrayed by the government.