There are indications that the house of representatives has failed to secure the arrest of Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the director-general of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), over her refusal to appear before the chambers in an ongoing probe.

 

On February 12, the house of representatives committee on public petitions threatened to issue an arrest warrant for Coker-Odusote, over an alleged breach of a software development licence agreement with Truid Limited.

 

The committee, chaired by Mike Etaba, handles petitions referred to it by the lower house.

 

THE PETITION BEFORE THE PANEL

In a petition presented to the panel, E.R. Opara, counsel for Truid Limited, claimed that the agreement was based on an arrangement in which the firm funded, developed, and deployed the tokenisation system without any financial obligation from NIMC.

 

In return, Truid would recover its investment through service provider patronage, with proceeds shared according to a predetermined ratio.

 

The deal was reportedly set to run for an initial period of 10 years, starting from 2021, when the software was deployed.

 

 

Opara said Coker-Odusote, an ex-chief executive officer (CEO) of the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA), has been attempting to terminate the agreement since she was appointed by President Bola Tinubu in 2023.

 

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, TheCable 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.”

 

 

However, more than two weeks after the committee’s sitting on March 13 according to reports, there are no indications that Coker-Odusote honoured the panel’s invitation by appearing before it. It also seems that the panel has failed to secure a warrant for her arrest.

 

TheCable contacted Etaba for comments, but he was furious, questioning the publication’s interest in the matter and hung up.

 

The federal government introduced the NIMC tokenisation system on December 22, 2021, with full implementation commencing the following year.

 

Isa Pantami, the former minister of communications and digital economy, said the solution was adopted “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”.

 

Prior to this, the minister reportedly announced in September 2021, that the federal executive council (FEC) approved N25 billion for the upgrade and replacement of the NIMC’s identity infrastructure.