The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced that Nigerians will need to pay for the new multipurpose national identity card, citing limited government revenue as the primary reason for the decision.

Speaking during a two-day roundtable for journalists in Lagos, Dr. Peter Iwegbu, Head of Card Management Services at NIMC, said, “The payment is to ensure that the card is produced for only those who need it.”

He explained that this approach aims to avoid repeating past mistakes where physical cards were issued for free, but many were left uncollected.

“In the previous attempt to issue free National ID cards, over two million cards were produced, and many of them have not been collected till date,” he noted.

Dr. Iwegbu further stated, “The government’s limited revenue is also a major factor in the decision to make Nigerians pay for the new ID card.”

Adding to this, the Director of Information Technology at NIMC, Mr. Lanre Yusuf, said, “The idea of a free national ID card did not turn out well in the past.” He described the new ID card as a post-paid identity card, emphasizing that individuals must need the card before initiating a request for it.

“To get the new national ID card, Nigerians will need to make a payment, select a pickup location, and then collect their card from the chosen location,” Yusuf explained.

He also mentioned programs aimed at ensuring inclusivity: “The government has implemented programs to make the card accessible to less privileged Nigerians who cannot afford it but require it to access government support. This initiative demonstrates the government’s commitment to inclusivity and equality.”

Yusuf revealed that the multipurpose ID cards are set to launch soon, with sample test cards already received.

He added, “NIMC is working with banks across the country, which will make it possible for people to walk into any bank closest to them and request the card.”

He further highlighted the card’s functionality, stating, “The new national ID card is a multipurpose card that can serve the purpose of identity verification, payments, and even government services.”

The card, powered by AfriGO, was developed in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System.

It is designed to support government intervention programs and services across various ministries, departments, and agencies.

Black Friday is one of the most anticipated shopping events of the year that offers huge discounts and enticing deals on different products, but the excitement it offers can easily lead to overspending, poor purchasing decisions, and even regrets.

To make the most of Black Friday without falling into common traps, it’s important to approach the sales strategically and avoid the pitfalls that can turn a great deal into a costly mistake.

Here are five things to avoid to ensure a successful and stress-free shopping experience.

1. Shopping without a budget

The first thing to do if you do not want to make a costly mistake on Black Friday is to shop without having a budget. You can easily overspend due to the exciting offers you get from the retailers and lose control of your spending.

To stay in control of your spending, create a shopping list of what you truly need and stick to it. If you’re not sure about an item, ask yourself if you Would buy the item at full price, and if the answer is no, it’s likely not worth it.

2. Falling for the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Schemes

Although the “buy now, pay later” option is one of the ways you can save more, especially if you are shopping in this festive time due to its payment flexibility option it can also put you in a financial hole come January.

It is important you understand what you are signing in for because if you fail to pay on time, it can accumulate even more debt.

3. Impulsively Spending

Black Friday is a great opportunity to buy the things you need at a discount price, but that discount can lead to regret later if you don’t deal with impulsively spending.

Retailers design sales to tempt you into buying items you don’t need by using flashy discounts, countdown clocks on websites, or listing the number of items left in stock—to trick consumers into splurging. To avoid these tricks, have a budget

4. Not Checking the Original Price of Items

Another common error is ignoring price comparisons, thinking you are taking the product for a good price, whereas some retailers inflate the “original price” of an item to make the discount look more significant.

Before you buy an item, check multiple stores to see if competitors have better offers

5. Return policies

Finally, you should also look out for the return policies because some Black Friday purchases often come with non-refundable policies, especially for electronics or clearance gadgets. Always keep your receipts and ensure you understand the return or exchange conditions before finalizing a purchase.

According to EFCC, Nigeria as a nation till date has lost over $500m
due to Cybercrime.

This will suggest that the loss as of today’s date is likely to be at least 20% higher as
more sophisticated cybercrime tools are now available and because of the
advancement in artificial intelligence, audio spoofing etc.

Cybercrime is criminal activity that either targets or uses a computer, a computer
network, or a networked device to gain access to finances or to steal or ransomware
or to compromise sensitive data.

Cybercrime is also perpetuated to disrupt computer networks and blackmail an
organisation into paying out agreed sums to get their network, for political or
personal reasons and can be carried out by individuals or organizations.

As sophisticated as some western countries such as United States, Australia,
Germany, France, UK etc with tools such as Firewalls, Endpoint Detection Systems,
Zero Trust, 2-Factor authentication right now it still seems like a lost battle.

Traditional methods of protecting IT networks and data such as firewalls, zero trust
and two-factor authentication based on authenticating twice on the same device, etc.,
are failing to provide the required protection for our digital assets or IT landscape.

Imagine if we undertook an exercise (with written permission) to conduct a security
penetration test of most of the leading consumer software applications used daily by
most of our society, I believe the findings would be very revealing.

Nigeria is now gradually becoming a victim country, however there are ways,
methods, and techniques to impede data theft & ransomware crimes and provide
100% security for all data as follows.

3 or 4 -Factor encryption of all data, files of any kind, (text, images & video)
at rest to include biometrics such as facial recognition or using your
fingerprint to unlock access viewing all sensitive data.

Automatic back up of data at file or row data level, wherever the data resides
on a personal PC, in the cloud, on a server machine which now provides
100% recoverability.

Migrate or convert data held in spreadsheets to a secure encrypted database
application.

Using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Software Robotics and
Powerful Programming Languages to write customised software applications
that can proactively detect, defend, and attack cyber criminals in their stride.

Cybersecurity Ventures estimated “global cybercrime costs to grow by 15 percent
per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up
from $3 trillion USD in 2015.

Cyber Crime represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the
incentives for innovation and its growth rate is exponentially larger than the damage
inflicted from natural disasters in a single year, and will be more profitable than the
global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.”

The above statistics are clearly very concerning, industry practitioners, cybersecurity
product providers and practitioners certainly need to communicate more and
collaborate on research and development to discover, invent and establish new
products, services and techniques to combat cybercrime.

Current methods or complacency would result in many such new headliners, we
need to act fast and Nigeria as a nation is clearly no exception.

Author – Valentine Waturuocha
Valentine Waturuocha is the Chief Technology Officer/Founder of TEMSCONSU
(www.temsconsu.com) and is the inventor of Excelitte (www.excelitte.com – A Cyber Security
Toolset that has all the features mentioned in the article), PMPplanner – (www.pmpplanner.com – A Project Management Toolset that has features than none other has), Omnium Lite –
(www.temscorp.com – A DevOps TEM Toolset).

Valentine started his career over 25 years ago after completing an MSC degree in City University London, with a focused practical dissertation in Computer & Internet Security.

Valentine also completed a mini- business studies program at Harvard University Boston in 2007 and is a member of the Harvard Business Review Group.

Valentine has either led or been involved at a decision-making level in successfully delivering a combined value of over $300 million worth of project value to various organisations globally in the last 10 years or so.

In the past 5 years he has also consulted or advised federal, state & local government depts in Australia, the United States, EMEA regions, etc on Cybersecurity, DevOps, E-Government.