Point One

News emerged last week that the United States government of President Donald Trump has penciled Nigerians among nationals of seven countries marked for visa restriction under a policy scheduled to be unveiled. According to reports attributing the Wall Street Journal , Nigeria is in unflattering league with Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan, Eritrea and Tanzania being considered for the policy. Not that there would be a blanket ban on affected nationals entering the US, but they would be restricted on business and visitor visas known as the B1/B2 visas. This decision, the reports said, resulted from many Nigerians visiting the US but who have refused to leave despite the expiration of their visa. The Wall Street Journal was quoted saying: “The Trump administration plans to add seven countries to a group of nations subject to travel restrictions. They include Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, along with others in Africa and Asia, according to administration officials who...

Nigeria is one country with a plethora of identity data banks that do not interconnect. Among these are the data for obtaining the Bank Verification Number (BVN) being harvested by banks; the dataset for obtaining the International Passport booklet with the Immigration Service, another set for obtaining a Driver’s Licence from the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC), and yet another set for obtaining the unique Voter Identification Number that qualifies eligible persons for the Permanent Voter Card from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Even telecoms operators have their own databanks harvested from SIM card registration by their clients. The most basic of these, in practice, is the dataset for obtaining the National Identity Number (NIN) from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). ‘In practice,’ because in principle there could’ve been the most comprehensive data nest with the National Population Commission (NPC), but with the last census conduct...