How ECOWAS Identity card will impact security, economy in West Africa
Historically, travels across West Africa have been hitch free with trading caravans moving freely between Sokoto in Nigeria and Salaga in Ghana. Today countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are introducing a new biometric travel card that will also serve as passport and residence permit. reports on how this will impact the region and Nigeria’s porous borders.
On April 16, the Federal Government of Nigeria signed a concessional agreement for the production of 13 million ECOWAS biometric Identity cards.
This was the first step in implementing the agreement reached by 16 ECOWAS countries in December, 2014 with the aim of improving movement of citizens across borders in the subregion.
The card will also serve as a residency permit, a passport at the airports, and also as proof of identity for the bearers.
In addition to the aims which this new card is required to fulfill, each country may, at its own convenience, list other data on the card, such as blood type, driving license, the subject’s health condition or other applications relative to the card holder.
Already, Senegal is implementing the Community Directives regarding the new biometric identity card, the first country to do so. Ghana and Guinea soon followed. With Nigeria joining the fray, it will surely be a big boost to the project.
Director General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Chidi Izuwah thinks the cards will improve the identity database and the ability to manage migration in the sub-region.
“It is important for the movement of people. It will be financed by the private sector but will be beneficial to the government,” he said.
Mr Izuwah said the ICRC will take custody of the contract while the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service will supervise the project for the benefit of Nigerians.
Messrs Euphoria Press Limited will be printing the cards. The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Abdullahi Girei disclosed that the innovation in the card is such that it is impossible to forge.
He said production of the card will commence within the next three months, adding that “it’s to be in all the states, in the state commands of Nigeria Immigration Service and embassies of West African
member states.”
The ECOWAS Commission had, during its 54th ordinary session of the Head of States and Government on 22nd December 2018, in Abuja resolved that all members must ensure the implementation of the agreement on ECOWAS card.
Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau said “The project is to cost about N14.7 billion and this is a contractor financed project and what that means is that the service provider is to use his funds to finance the project.”
“The contract will be for a period of 10 years and within those 10 years, it is expected that about 13 million cards would be produced.”
He expressed hope that the new identity card would help enhance security at all Nigerian borders.
“Currently the ECOWAS travel certificate in use does not have biometric features and so it is subject to abuse and can be produced anywhere without room for checking the background of the holder. But the new identity card carries the photographs, fingerprints and other details of the card which can be checked instantly.”
Apart from reducing time spent at entry points, the card will aid security agencies like Interpol to track criminals across borders.
There have been concerns over the ease with which foreigners access the Nigerian borders. Criminalities such as violent attacks on villages by gunmen are often blamed on foreigners.
Now, the Minister of Interior is insisting that henceforth, immigrants within the ECOWAS sub region must possess the ECOWAS biometric card to have access into the country.
Dambazau described the move as part of the government’s efforts to curb the influx of foreign criminal elements into Nigeria.
“Nobody can cross our borders without the ECOWAS Identity Card. These are some of the security arrangements Nigeria is making to address border security issues,” Dambazau, told members of the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC) 12 of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Bwari, Abuja, recently. Security experts spoken with are very optimistic over the introduction of the ECOWAS biometric card.
“It will be very difficult to forge documents henceforth,” one of them, who preferred not to be named, said. “Security outfits anywhere in the country can easily verify the authenticity of the card in their system.”
Apart from the security features that promise better security for the country, the ECOWAS biometric card also has some economic benefits for the country, being the most populated in the region.
For President Muhammadu Buhari, the card is a forerunner to the unification of the subregion.
“The adoption of a single biometric identity card is also commendable and will facilitate the establishment of a single currency, while engendering free movement of persons,” President Buhari told the 50th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of States and Government of ECOWAS, in Abuja.
A public commentator in Abuja, Sule Ya’u Sule is of the view that Nigeria, which produces more goods and services, stands to gain more from increases in regional trade and travels.
He posited that trade and especially, travel within and among ECOWAS members grows daily and could become one of Nigeria’s most vibrant economic activities, especially for the large citizens operating at the informal level.
“The adoption of the ECOWAS Travel (biometric) card by member states as standard document for
travellers within the region is boosting intra-ECOWAS trade in significant proportions.
“The ECOWAS Travel Card has the objective of exempting holders from intra-regional visa requirements and functions as an international travel document.
“The travel card complements other measures by ECOWAS, especially the ones aimed at easing the movement of persons transported in private and commercial vehicles by harmonizing policies that enable vehicles to enter and temporarily reside in a member states for up to ninety days.”
He also believes the card will encourage easier and faster intra-regional trade, and curb cross-border smuggling and trafficking.
At the end of April, ECOWAS embarked on a four-day advocacy and sensitization campaign for the ECOWAS National Biometric Identity Card (ENBIC) and the fight against Trafficking in Persons which started from the 23rd to 26th.
The delegation for the advocacy and sensitization campaign was led by representatives from the ECOWAS Commission’s Free Movement and Humanitarian Directorates and was supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
The campaign, which traversed the Nigeria-BeninTogo borders sought to engage key stakeholders such as transporters and law enforcement agencies in charge of border management with the aim of sensitizing them on the instrumentality of the ENBIC in combating Trafficking in Persons and strengthening the security architecture and data management at the ECOWAS borders.
In the next few years, the hope is that the card will redefine the face of travel in the subregion. Only time will tell the impact this will have on the region and its people.