10 reasons why residency card won’t be effective in Kaduna

1, The scheme is controversial and obnoxious and has no place in Nigeria where the constitution allows any citizen to live anywhere he or she chooses to.

2, A so-called residency card is no substitute for census figures or population estimates through random sampling in order to enable security and socio-economic planning.

3, People who are registered today could leave the state tomorrow for other abodes and unregistered persons also enter the state every day, much as they enter and leave other states.

4, This country has not had a population census for twelve years but if Kaduna State Government requires updated population figures, there are better ways to get them even without a full blown census.

5, The right agencies to partner with here are National Population Commission and National Bureau of Statistics which can help it make scientific updates of its total population, number of people in any given area, school age children, women of child-bearing age, youths, the elderly, physically challenged etc.

6, Government does not have to know the names of people before it plans social amenities and infrastructure.

7, It is positively dangerous to say a citizen must present a residency card before he enjoys any kind of social amenity.

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8, From “residency” it is one short step to profiling people and seeking to exclude some citizens from access to schools or health care.

9, The National Identity Management Commission’s [NIMC] role in this scheme is dubious. This same commission has not been able to achieve its mandate of registering and issuing National ID card to all citizens. Many people were registered years ago but they have still not been given the ID cards. It should therefore go and carry out its primary mandate instead of getting involved in this controversial scheme.

10, Ondo State’s former governor Olusegun Mimiko once toyed with the idea of residency card and said only those that presented it would enjoy access to health care. Needless to say, it attracted wide condemnation.