Message from the CEO
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you, to this column and to the world of Office Machines Nigeria Limited. The realities of our time has thrown up a global spirit of disperse, sober and miserable life occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic. We urge you not to relent because those who built Rome did not quit. At the end of the tunnel is hope of light and we are very optimistic that this global misery will go away sooner than later. We believe in the great efforts of scientist in finding a vaccine, we also trust that through good and great social habit the spread will be curtailed and the world will be back to normal.
One of the major issues affecting Nigeria and Africa as a whole is the difficulty of identity management. There are over 200 million people in Nigeria and only about 40 million of that population records are in the national database. This has resulted to inadequate planning as development agencies, corporate organizations, governments, researchers and planners have enormous challenge in identifying and determining how many Nigerians are, where they live, when they were born, what profession are they, whether they are married, single or divorced. A growing and predictable world needs accurate, easily accessible and verifiable data of her citizens; to manage social welfare relating to tackling poverty, hunger, insecurity, health and unemployment rate.
With the central and critical need for identity management, World Bank included provision of legal identity for all in its global SDGs target and would fund the program in Nigeria. Interestingly, Office Machines Nigeria Limited (OMNL) is one of the pioneer companies selected by National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to accelerate digital identity development in Nigeria.
OMNL is an information technology company that has accomplished many achievement in bringing IT solutions and professional services to client with the advancement and wave of change in the technological world. Our team through the spirit of teamwork and strong sense of vision impact positive changes to the society using identity management.
In view of this, we provide National Identity Number enrolment, verification, authentication and equipment vendor services. Issuance of NIN (National Identity Number) is conducted both as mobile and fixed enrolment using real time validation and batch processing. It is important to remember that COVID-19 is still ravaging Nigeria; that is the major reason that OMNL-recently unveiled the scheduling appointment system and social distancing measures to safe guard citizens who intend to get enrolled. With this application, Nigerians can book their appointments before going to the centres. This ensures orderliness in enrolment centres as well as prescribed guidelines for social distancing.
Moreover, the benefit of verification service cannot be over-emphasized in all sectors in Nigeria. It authenticates the information provided and prevents impersonation and double registration. In this COVID-19 era, it is necessary for the Government to share palliatives to citizen and account to it. This can be done effectively using a digital identity system.
We are happy to provide these services and hope in no little measures help in Nigerian economic recovery and economic growth.
Okey Ikpe
