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FG To Replace BVN With NIN

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The Federal Government has stated that plans are ongoing to replace the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) with the National Identity Numbers (NIN).

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Dr Isa Pantami, made this known to newsmen on Monday after a tour of telecoms operators and NIN licensees in Abuja.

Pantami who was accompanied by the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Garba Danbatta, said President Muhammadu Buhari has been briefed on the on-going NIN registrations.

The minister added that he had also briefed the National Economic Sustainability Committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the imperative of replacing BVN with NIN.

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He pointed out that while BVN was only for bank accounts holders, the NIN are for all Nigerians irrespective of their status.

Pantami said: “The challenge is that the BVN records may not be 100 percent the same with NIN but what is most important is that the NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizen, including legal residents.

“BVN is a policy of a bank and has not been established by law, NIN is the only mandatory number and the primary identification of our citizens and every other identification is secondary.

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“The NIMC Act 2007 provides that all our citizens must be enrolled and the law gives them 60 days to enroll from the time the law was enacted and a maximum of 180 days and all permanent residents in the country and legal residents that have to stay here for a minimum of 24 months must be enrolled.

“So this is the primary identification of all and all other data bases are supposed to utilize this and not for NIN to utilize the BVN because it is the primary one.

“We discussed with the CBN Governor today on how to ensure that all our citizens with BVN will immediately be provided with the NIN. We are working on that but facilitating the process lies on CBN to make it much easier for our people.”

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