Recently, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) had a running battle with its workers as some aggrieved unionist protested the sack of their colleagues. Its Director-General/CEO, Chris Onyemenam, says the management of the infrastructure of the Commission is too sensitive to be left in the hands of people without character. He says NIMC has succeeded in producing and e-ID Card that has the elicited the recognition of global bodies, such as the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) can never be left to be managed by people with questionable integrity. LUCAS AJANAKU met him.
For some years, the country has been on national identity. What are the unique features of the e-ID Card the Commission is giving the country?
What we have now is a system that assures and uniquely says you are who you say you are and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) can confirm this conclusively. In our systems, this is represented by a set of 11-digit number that cannot be duplicated and is verifiable in a secure manner. And before the numbers are issued to anyone, care would have been taken to ensure through a specific process that is repeated for every such entry of personal information that your information had not been previously entered into the system, by the use of your biometrics (face, fingerprints and as we will soon upgrade to iris), because there is a National Identity Database (NIDB) where the data is stored. That is the beauty of what we have. And you know what, it is secure, see with a disaster recovery/ business plan and Nigerians and local firms are significantly involved. Also, the National e-ID Card is the only government International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) compliant token whose document signer is resident and managed in Nigeria.
In November this year, your tenure is expected to end. What legacies are you leaving behind ?
By the time I leave hopefully at the end of my tenure in November this year, the most important legacy is getting an electronic identification scheme for Nigeria. We have also been able to set up a straight identity verification scheme for Nigeria. My team and i will be remembered for three thing; the winding up of the defunct DNCR has been completely achieved and there is no such thing as DNCR anymore, and if you investigate properly, you will find that there are institutions that have been wound up either by policy or laws still find a way of remaining around. That is not the case with the DNCR. Second, the three decade problem old of ascertaining or deciding on how to uniquely identify Nigerians has been laid to rest and that to me is an important legacy and I am sure that my team and I will be remembered for our pioneering efforts in ensuring that there is a departure from the past ways of doing identification in Nigeria. Like I very often say, we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them, that was what I learnt from Albert Einstein. The thinking we had before led to an obsession with national institutions and the private sector, focusing on card issuance as an end to its self. Sometimes these cards can be duplicated or obtained from a business centre nearby.
Of what use would this be to Nigeria and Nigerians?
Positively of course! This is one legacy of President Jonathan’s administration that will be useful for the incoming administration. My understanding is that the incoming administration has security, unemployment and social welfare payments as very cardinal programmes to pursue and you must first be able to ascertain who each individual is before talking about eligibility for one social welfare programme or the other. That’s i why the safety Nets Projects is already tied to this NIMS project. You must be able to talk of a foundation identity before talking of a functional identity. And so, it is very central or core to any attempt at addressing security social welfare issues particularly when you want to implement social welfare programmes like paying stipends to the unemployed or other deserving citizens, payment of benefits to farmers like we are currently working to deploy with the Federal ministry of Agriculture, payment of pensions to pensioners, payment of any other social benefit to citizens and for any other government transfers. So that process of providing unique identification for ensuring that such programmes get to the targeted population is already in place. This is an important programme for all times honestly and Nigerians should be appreciative of the effort of all NIMC staff.
Secondly, a foundation identity provides you with the important tool not only facilitating service delivery across the public and private sectors abut also for fighting crime. It is going to complement the works of the security agencies. I alluded to the fact that access has been given to one of the agencies that is able to use the database to verify the identity of individuals and by the time we put it to use in some of the other government agencies and even in the private sector, the rate of identity related frauds will just take a dive downwards.
Also unique identity means you can count the number of unemployed and channel them through a scheme using the card and luckily there is a payment solution on it. So it helps you to organise schemes around specific programmes based on eligibility indices, which is similar to what we are currently doing with the Ministry of Agriculture.
There was a face-off between management and workers at NIMC. What could have precipitated this?
The main issue is that some members of staff who falsified their service records and thus have been profiting from that fraud were asked to go on account of a disciplinary process recently concluded. The issues at stake are fake appointment, promotion, conversion, and advancement letters and NIMC have had to follow the process as laid down in the rules and regulations for the Public Service to deal with such cases. The workers had the opportunity for fair hearing, which is a Disciplinary Committee, set up to determine the extent of the fraud but they choose to go to court. It didn’t start yesterday, it didn’t start in 2014; it started in 2012, when the Commission began the process of absorption of the DNCR staff and the payment of promotion arrears, which in itself started 2008.
And so when they went to court in mid-2014 to try to stop the process, we obeyed the court order and stopped. After between seven and eight months, the case came to a close and the Commission won at the National Industrial Court. The court had decided that it was not possible for the Court to interfere with an administrative or a disciplinary process between an employee and an employer, and therefore, the Union, seeking an intervention of the Court to stop such a process on its behalf was an anomaly. We then took our time, to invite them again, this time thsi year to come and clear themselves from the allegations following the queries issued, and some of them came, and a few were exculpated, and have since been issued their proper placement letters. Other felt it was till a court issue and failed to avail themselves the opportunity of an appearance that in its self is a violation of a public service rule.
There are others who did not come and somehow, felt that Management should allow them to continue to profit from what we call a fraudulent act on their side. By the way, we have reported the criminal aspect of this issue to the police. This is what is required of us because the criminal aspect of their conduct is not for us to deal with. It is the administrative aspect that has to do with discipline that is our responsibility, and we have gone through the whole process. There are public sector institutions that are supposed to help ensure that indeed an adequate and appropriate fair hearing were present at the disciplinary committee sittings: the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF), Federal Civil Service Commission and he Federal Character Commission were all duly represented.
However, the Union, representing staff members have decided for whatever reasons to resist the outcome of the disciplinary process, suggesting that they encourage such fraudulent acts, and clearly want to divert attention from the major facts and issues at hand.
Were the affected workers not employed under your management?
No. This set of workers, were not employed by NIMC. They were among those whom the Commission had to take over from the defunct Department of National Civic Registration (DNCR) and essentially, if you take over the assets and liabilities of an institution, it is only proper that you look into the quality of the assets and liabilities you have inherited, to determine whether the ownership you are now being conferred with by virtue of the provisions of the Act that made it possible is acceptable. That enables you to decide on the next issues: trainings postings, redundancy, recruitments and others.
For these set of workers, however, it has nothing to do with whether they are competent, whether they needed training, or whether they could fit into the new scheme. It had more to do more with the character of the person we are talking about. Because if you could falsify your own service records, and you expect to be given the responsibility to attend to and manage and operate personal information and the collection, processing and use of database that people should rely upon, it takes a lot away from the entire National Identity Management System (NIMS) infrastructure. If you have a character issue of that nature, it is indeed a huge issue if someone with a questionable integrity is the gatekeeper of the infrastructure that should help us achieve a secure identity system and that is the crux of the issue. The dilemma is what to do with a staff member who has put in several years of service including years during which he profited from fraudulent act he perpetrated which represents his character as inimical to the safety and future of the project.
So why are you taking action at this point in time?
Really not sure your question is couched rightly, but here is the answer. This process started long ago. It was preceded by at least three verification exercises. First was the one we did in collaboration with the service providers approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2008 to enable us know the assets we were taking over in terms of numbers and categories. That led to the elimination of what we may refer to as ‘ghost workers’ because they didn’t turn up for verification.
Second was when they were to be sent back to the office of the Head of Civil Service, since they were pool staff. Then there was a third verification exercise which was jointly don with the office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation which was successfully done and brought out conclusively, the issues on which they were given opportunity to explain. That opportunity was given in June 2014 and the sitting of the Disciplinary Committee was delayed by the court action for about eight months s mentioned before. It was after the ruling of the court which was in our favour that we subsequently recommended the process. It happened to be between now –March-April this year. The Board gave its approval only last two week. What would you have done if you were in my shoes?
I cannot because I am about to end my tenure in a couple of months, refuse to do my job properly, and thus pass on a liability or leave behind an organisation and infrastructure that will simply have an unintended consequence for my successor. One of the most important reasons we embarked on the evaluation of the quality of the assets we took over was first to be sure of what we were inheriting. The second thing is that if you want the unique identification system to be globally recognised and acceptable, we needed to benchmark our service and organisational infrastructure in terms of deployment and processes to accepted standards globally and one of the tools or index used is the information security management system.
There are various levels of certifications for identity and database management infrastructure: the data centre, the data capture, network, connectivity and others. What that shows when you obtain these certifications simply put, is that you have a very good and safe identity management infrastructure. We wanted to ensure that that was in place, because one thing that can make you lose your certification overnight is if you have questionable integrity, and so we were always conscious of the need for background checks to be conducted as fast as possible so why leave these ones that we started to work on long ago because I am leaving office in about six months from now?
It behoves on me as a responsible custodian to ensure that I am leaving behind a safe infrastructure, and these former colleagues wouldn’t help to ensure the safety of that infrastructure and it is inconsistent with the certification programmes that we have spent and labored so much to achieve so we needed to address this difficult choices and decisions to be made. Sur, it was difficult, but it has to find a way of making things work differently.
It is not that this issue didn’t start yesterday, and it’s not like I am in a hurry to conclude the process, after all, the decision of the court which was in our favour was obtained on December 5th last year and here we are today, May 11th this year. If I had wanted to quickly get it done, I would have done so in December. Third, government is a continuum. That I am a Director-General today and due to leave office November 27th this year does not mean that I shouldn’t do what the Commission should do now. It is left to my successor to come in and say, this is not consistent with the rules and regulations. My successor will still follow a process. And as long as we have followed the process, I really don’t think there was any need, or was it right to pass on the problem.
You were accused of sacking their colleagues so that you plant your cronies?
Well, if I want to sack them and recruit my cronies, then the next person will sack those people and recruit his/her cronies and the vicious circle goes on. That is not public service operates please. That is not how countries develop, and that is not how institutions are built. We didn’t and I am not in the habit of doing that. There is a clear government policy which we adhered to. We advertised, and went to the Federal character commission and obtained the allocations for all the states and we adhered to that. In spite of the allocations, we still made sure that those who we picked up the slots for each states were people who merited it in terms of qualifications, age, experience, relevance etc., and so, there is no truth in that allegation.
Unfair labour practices such as anti-women policy flourished. It was alleged that pregnant woman had to resume a day after child birth. You also allegedly deliberately deny workers their right to go on annual leave.
That is not correct. NIMC Management is very labour-friendly. And I can give a few examples: We negotiated the redundancy package with the Unions in 2012, we signed an agreement with all the Unions including the ASCSN subsequently, we conducted the nationwide staff verification exercises with them each time we did it. We paid overtime, special allowances when we deployed the identity management infrastructure nationwide and we revived and provided support for the management of the staff transport scheme until they stopped running the scheme. We paid medical bills on compassionate grounds, we still run a clinic with medical doctors and sufficient drugs at the Head Office.
The examples cited are a misrepresentation of facts to justify picketing NIMC by the ASCSN. Government’s employment policy is virtually the same in all MDAs and it does not discriminate against women. In the particular instant, honestly I think the Union is being unfair to Management and the lady in question. The truth is that she submitted a medical report during documentation, on resumption of duty that says she is not pregnant, But she was indeed pregnant. That is error number one. She could have been honest and Management would have said please go and have your baby and come back four months after to resume. There were such cases and we counselled them and they obeyed. To do otherwise would amount to being insensitive. Error number two is that she concealed the pregnancy for at least nine good months and she gave birth perhaps over the weekend and resumed the next working day. Now imagine how Management would have been vilified if anything had happened to her. So for obvious reasons we asked her to stop work, go and look after her baby and come back after four months. She did and we let her come back to work like other women who were pregnant on resumption and took our counsel, so that we all keep to the rules as best as possible. Is that anti-women policy? The same Union that applauded Management is now misrepresenting the facts to justify its action.
About the annual leave issue. It is completely false. There were times when I directed that very senior people should not go on annual leave at particular times of the year. Whenever we were deploying or testing major components of the identity infrastructure I always made this clear, but not that they could not go on leave at all. However if you did not apply or were not entitled and or qualify for leave on compassionate grounds you should not go on leave. If you are being investigated it becomes very important that you should apply and obtain approval before you absent yourself from work.
What of the accusation about not wanting to train and re-tain workers?
If the ASCSN is honest they will tell you we had done very well in that regard. Check the audited accounts and see how much we had spent on staff training local and abroad. Since 2008 we focused on sorting a few issues out that included retaining the trainable ones and equipping them well for the new system we have deployed. But there is something unusual in the defunct DNCR – they had the highest concentration of Executive Cadre staff in the entire public service and most people did not have the kind of qualification that fitted the restructuring and technology deployment we were doing. SAGEM of France excluded Nigerians in the core aspects of these deployment when the last ID Card Scheme was implemented. There was no sufficient requisite staff and we had to do a lot of rebuilding. We trained and absorbed those we could, provided they did not have any service records issues. Some of them were actually junior staff members inherited from DNCR. If I may ask, what do you do to a staff who did not attend any training because he or she was not around – was away in school and being paid, even went for NYSC elsewhere, got paid NYSC allowance and as a staff of DNCR/NIMC? I challenge the national ASCSN to ask each member of the local executive committee of the ASCSN NIMC Chapter to produce their staff service records to them for verification and make their findings public if they do not believe Management is sincere and honest. We know times are hard, we know some of them had put in years of service but do we abide in sin because grace abounds. What is the kind of institution we want to help build? I stand to be corrected, the Union has indeed been very unfair to NIMC Management, in particular the Governing Board, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the president.
You were talking about some awards presented to NIMC in Dubai. Can you elaborate on that please?
This happened on Tuesday the 12th of May, 2015. There is this Smart Card and Payment Awards in the Middle East organised annually. It is a global event where developments in the smart cards and payment industry are assessed globally and institutions are encouraged to submit their products for assessment and evaluation. We were one of the five institutions that made the final list in our category ‘Best Payment Initiative Africa’ and NIMC clinched the award.
The National e-ID Card was adjourned the most innovative African payment platform in 2014. And for us, that is an important endorsement by the global community and as I speak, a couple of countries have indicated interest over the past six -seven months to come and understudy the Commission and see what we have done and how we did it. They include Ghana, UAE, Tanzania, Kenya, etc., so we are currently blazing the trail if you like in Africa and across the world. This is because it is not that the presence of a payment solution and an electronic identity on the same plastic have not been done before, what has not been done before is having more than just those two and having it at the level of a global name like MasterCard.
Typically, what people do is to have an electronic identity and a local payment solution that is not deep enough and does not help in deepening financial inclusion or access to financial credits. But the partnership we have with MasterCard meant that our Card will be acceptable in over 210 countries and anywhere and amongst any of our banks and that is beautiful and that is what made the news around the world because we were able to make the criteria set by such a global brand as well as global standards for eID Cards.
Well aside this award, have you been able to clinch any other award before now?
Yes there have been several endorsement and awards, and we really haven’t been talking about it because we didn’t think it was necessary to be blowing your own trumpet. Even this one, we not going to talk about it, but the irony is that it happened on the same day that the same product is been “vilified” locally and is being disparaged by a section of the labour that didn’t think we were doing a good job. They actually completely misunderstood what we were doing and that was why in the first instance, they were not even able to get along with the level and depth of the reforms. e.g. of the awards include the ID World programme in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, in America, etc. We have always been mentioned as one of the awardees at different levels and also as the most innovative government token and the most progressive Smartcard, the most technology savvy KYC, the most financial inclusion based card, a couple of such awards and recognitions have come from platforms like SD World, world E-ID forum, and the European Union Smart card association, but we have hardly ever said anything about it.
What we have focused on, and if you like call it a legacy is the establishment of a National Identification System that has come to stay. Now we have moved from there, to then institute a National electronic Identity Card that has also come to stay. Now we have moved to the level of implanting the identity verification scheme that is currently being used by one of the security agencies and as soon as we have the green light, it will be deployed in all of our airports and we will begin to see the value proposition in what we have done. So we have delivered. All that is left is the scaling up of the project and it was not originally the intention of government to handle the scaling up of the project? It was supposed to be handled by the private sector SPA s appointed as concessionaires.
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