Edo LG chairman crackdown on NIMC official for alleged extortion

Sanity has been restored at the Oredo Local government Council’s

National Identity Management Commission’s, NIMC official attached to the Council Secretariat.

This followed the arrest of National National Identification Number, NIN by security agents for alleged extortion by MIMC workers.

Mr Tom Obaseki, the Chairman of the Local government disclosed this at a joint Security meeting with the Management of NIMC Oredo Centre on Monday in Benin City.

Obaseki who issued a stern warning to individuals involved in sharp practices to desist from it or face the full wrath of the law, do not reveal the name of the official.

He said the Council had acquired additional registration machines to assist MIMC overcome the pressure associated with the registration, but the impact of his intervention, did not yield desired output.

Obaseki said, “We can not say because we are doing NIN registration activities and expose this secretariat to the risk of riots, and possible destruction of property belonging to the Secretariat.

“Because of our expectative actions that are taken place here and documented unapproved exploits, which are now beginning to expose us to security crisis. This also poses danger to workers and could lead to setting this Council Secretariat on fire someday”, he said.

He lamented that “The Council is aware that people now resort to collecting up to N25,000 to process NIN and it is supposed to be free. Two weeks ago, I made a personal effort to ensure people do not continue to suffer to get their NIN registration.

“We are reminding the Security Agents to do their jobs. Arrest anyone caught trying to exploit the people. We would charge them to court”, Obaseki said.

NIMC Oredo office Supervisor, Ehiede Marvis earlier informed the Council boss that the task of conducting enrollment for enrollees have become difficult due to poor network services to power their devices, thereby slowing down the pace of service delivery.

TheNewspad reports that vulnerable enrollees in the past pay between N15,000 (Fifteen Thousand Naira) and N25, 000 (Twenty Five Thousand Naira) to fast-track their enrollment processes through back channel, thereby creating confusion.

Uncontrollable crowd of enrollees and squatters at the back end of the Council’s Secretariat, constitute public nuisance and pose serious security breach within the premises, have started abating.