NIN Centre In Lagos shuts down over Covid:19

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said it shut down its Lagos centre, on Monday, because the crowd that gathered there refused to comply with COVID-19 protocols.

The NIMC office at Alausa, Ikeja, was stormed by hundreds of people who wanted to enrol for the National Identity Number (NIN) on Monday.

The Director of Corporate Communications of NIMC, Kayode Adegoke, gave the reason for the shut down in an interview with Journalist .

An official at the Lagos centre who spoke on anonymity told Journalist that they started the biometric capturing around 7:00 a.m. on Monday.

He confirmed that hundreds of people had arrived at the gate to be captured.

“When I got here at 6:23 a.m., I couldn’t drive in, I had to park my car somewhere else.”

He said the process was coordinated at first, as the officials moved 170 people in to sit, while others were left outside the gate for orderliness.

“All of a sudden, those at the gate forced the gate open and all rushed in. That was when the problem started. They were uncontrollable,” he added.

He said at the time, pictures were taken and circulated and they got an order from Abuja to stop the process, saying they were attending to the first 25 people at the time.