The Nigerian government has launched the National Identity Number-enabled farmer registry and Government to People (G2P) card initiative to enable and facilitate intervention to crash food prices.

This was disclosed in a joint statement released on Thursday by the spokespersons of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and the National Identity Management Commission, Joel Oruche and Kayode Adegoke, respectively.

According to the Nigerian government, the initiative designed to address the immediate challenges of identity and authentication is required to deliver government services efficiently and accurately.

More importantly, the initiative will address food security and reduction in food prices upon government direct interventions.

“Its aim is to eradicate the challenges of FMAFS in efficiently delivering well-intended government programs to the targeted citizens.

“The farmer registry and card ecosystem.

“To this end, the FMAFS, guided by Mr. President’s circular on the use of National Identification Number (NIN) by all MDAs in the provision of government services to beneficiaries, has partnered with NIMC to leverage the National Identity Management System to power the Ministry’s farmer registry by the linkage of the NIN and attendant biometric identity data of each farmer to their farmland, as well as all necessary supporting data relating to that farmer, including the size of the holding and type of crops or livestock.

“Connecting this NIN-backed registry to the G2P card will thereby allow for the provision of targeted and ring-fenced aid to the farmers and other recipients of government benefits under the FMAFS programs.
“The G2P card ecosystem is an initiative that allows for the issuance of NIN-enabled cards by Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and enables the use of the card’s frontend by these MDAs for their respective programs.” The key feature of the ecosystem is a biometrics card with multiple wallets that can provide verifiable identification and process transactions without internet connectivity, allowing the Ministry to support beneficiaries in the most remote locations.

“The card is unique to each citizen, and every Nigerian and legal resident is eligible to obtain it, banked or unbanked. The G2P card will be owned by and personalised to each MDA that adopts its usage.

“With the G2P ecosystem, any program implemented by the Ministry can now be administered independently and showcased through digitally enabled dashboards displaying key data on how each program has been efficiently implemented or otherwise,” the statement reads.