Distribution of ID cards has encouraged more registration -- DNCR
THE department of National Civic Registration (DNCR) says the distribution of the national identity cards has encouraged more people to identify with the ongoing registration.
The DNCR Director, Mr Wahab Jimoh, made this known in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja wednesday.
Jimoh said that the increased acceptance of the card by commercial and financial institutions had enhanced its status as a veritable means of personal identification.
According to him, the cards have been distributed in Bayelsa, Yobe, Delta, Ogun, Kwara, Benue, Lagos, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Edo, Kebbi, Ondo, Kano and Katsina states.
Other states that had benefited are Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Plateau, Bauchi, Kogi, Osun, Ekiti, Niger and Kaduna, he said.
The national identity cards are yet to be distributed in Oyo, Nasarawa, Anambra, Jigawa, Taraba, Enugu, Imo, Abia, Rivers, Borno, Gombe and Zamfara states.
The director said registration was still ongoing for all Nigerians, who had attained 18 years and those who were not captured during the 2003 national civic registration exercise.
He also said that the DNCR had completed the processing and production of 40 million bio-metrically validated records of Nigerians captured during that exercise.
He said that the current registration would also cover people already registered, but who wish to update information on their cards because their status had changed.
``What any member of the public needs to do is make a report at any office of the DNCR, whether at the local government area, state or headquarters, and a new card is processed and given to the applicant,'' Jimoh said.
The director said that 40 million identity cards were generated from the 52 million applications recorded in the last exercise, with 12 million of the applications rejected.
Jimoh explained that the rejection resulted from either double registration, under age registration, incomplete filling of forms and bad or poor fingerprinting records.