The Nigerian government is considering replacing the Bank Verification Numbers with the National Identity Numbers, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said on Monday.
Mr Pantami disclosed this while briefing journalists after a facility tour and inspection of the ongoing NIN enrolment exercise at NIMC and other designated centres in Abuja.
He said he had made the request at the National Economic Sustainability Committee.
He said the BVN is a regulator’s policy, while NIN is a law.
“The strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution,’’ he said.
“BVN is our secondary database, while NIN and the database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to NIMC.
That is why we came up with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation that we always enforce and this is applicable to the database at our disposal.
“We take care of it and make sure that security is excellent and we don’t allow anybody to compromise the content because it is a trust from our citizens given to us.’’
He said the collaboration with the private sectors in the NIN enrolment is a universal standard.
