There are signs that the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC) director-general, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, has not been arrested by the House of Representatives because she has refused to appear before the chambers as part of an ongoing investigation.
Due to an alleged violation of a software development licensing agreement with Truid Limited, Coker-Odusote was threatened with an arrest warrant by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions on February 12.
The lower chamber refers petitions to the committee, which is led by Mike Etaba.
THE PETITION BEFORE THE PANEL
In a petition submitted to the panel, Truid Limited’s attorney, E.R. Opara, said that the agreement was founded on a contract wherein the company built, funded, and implemented the tokenisation system without requiring payment from NIMC.
Through service provider patronage, Truid would recoup its investment, with the revenues being distributed in accordance with a pre-established ratio.
According to reports, the agreement was originally scheduled to last for ten years, beginning in 2021 when the software was implemented.
According to Opara, since her appointment by President Bola Tinubu in 2023, Coker-Odusote, the former CEO of the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA), has been trying to end the contract.
Speaking on the matter, Etaba said the committee would issue a warrant of arrest for the director-general if she fails to appear before the panel, which was slated for March 13, The Intercept understands.
“If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we will have no option other than to ask the inspector-general of police to bring her,” the lawmaker had said.
“How can an official of government treat constituted authority with such levity? We can no longer condone such an attitude.”
When The Intercept reached out to Etaba for comment, he became irate and questioned the publication’s interest in the issue but later hung up.
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The federal government launched the NIMC tokenisation system on December 22, 2021, with full implementation starting the following year.
However, reports indicate that Coker-Odusote did not appear before the panel, more than two weeks after the committee’s March 13 meeting, and it appears that the panel has not obtained a warrant for her arrest.
The solution was implemented “to ensure the privacy of personally identifiable information of individuals during verification transactions and to reduce incidences of illegal retrieval, usage, transfer, and storage of NIN,” according to former Communications and Digital Economy Minister Isa Pantami.
Before this, the minister allegedly declared in September 2021 that N25 billion had been granted by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for the replacement and improvement of the NIMC’s identification infrastructure.
