The ongoing National Identification Number enrolment may be suspended over the rising second wave of COVID-19.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, who disclosed this on Monday, urged the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, to go back to the drawing board and re-order the enrolment process to avoid large crowds at its centres nationwide.
Speaking on Channels TV, Mamora, who is a member of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said the government has a duty to ensure Nigerians are protected at all times.
“I don’t feel good looking at the picture where people are gathered in multitude. It is like a super-spreader event which we don’t like. But I’m also aware that the relevant ministry which is the communications and digital economy is looking at this.
“My understanding is that the whole process may be suspended so as to reorder the whole process in terms of management of the crowd because it was never intended that it would become a rowdy process like that,” he noted.
Further, Mamora said: “We have a duty as government to ensure that people are protected; we also have a duty to ensure people comply within the limit of what is good for the society at large.”
Workers of the NIMC had embarked on strike on Thursday last week overexposure to COVID-19 risks, lack of personal protective equipment, and poor funding. The workers, however, called off the industrial action some 24 hours later.
The Federal government through the Nigerian Communications Commission had ordered telecommunications companies to deactivate telephone lines of subscribers who failed to link their phones to their National Identity Numbers.
It also said all telcos subscribers with NIN have January 19 as the deadline to link their NIN with their SIM cards while subscribers without NIN have until February 9 to do so.
Mamora who expressed worry over the attitude of Nigerians towards the COVID-19 safety guidelines said it was not true that only the wealthy were dying as a result of the infection.
“I am worried about the attitude of our people generally, in terms of non-compliance particularly with respect to non-pharmaceutical interventions. If you go out there you still see a lot of people who are not bothered in terms of their attitude in terms of not wanting to use the face masks or when it is used, it is inappropriately worn.
“You still see people in large gatherings hosting parties as of nothing is happening, A few states are putting in place enforce measures, however, the rising figures daily are of huge concern and the deaths that we are recording on daily basis are also of concern.
“Some people seem to think that it is the big people that are dying but that is not the case. Yes, it is the big people that you report and the tendency is that it is the death of the big people that will attract attention more. But he who feels it knows it; people are dying.”
