The Federal Government has announced plans 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 in a chat with Journalists on Monday, in Abuja.
He said it became necessary because BVN was for account holders, while NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizen, legal residents inclusive.
The minister Said the BVN records may not be 100 percent, stating that it is just bank policy, which has not been established by law.
He said NIN is the only mandatory number and the primary identification of citizens and every other identification is secondary.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he added.
