The National Identity Management Commission in Lagos State on Thursday urged all physically-challenged applicants for the National Identification Number to remain calm and shun unruly behaviours at NIMC offices.
Olumide Aremu, NIMC Lagos West Coordinator, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria following the protest by People Living with Disability (PLWD) at NIMC office on Tuesday.
NAN recalls that some aggrieved PLWD NIN applicants staged a protest at the Ikeja office of NIMC on Tuesday over alleged neglect and delay in their enrollment.
Aremu, who said that although NIMC gave priority to PLWD, nursing mothers and elderly people in enrollment, it should not be seen as a licence to be rude and disorderly whenever they arrived NIMC offices.
“It is in our policy to give priority to physically challenged, but because of COVID-19 there are some standards we need to implement.
“So, it is not every physically challenged that we will need to move in at the same time because of the COVID-19 protocol.
“On Tuesday, when they came, they were trying to move in so that they can do the capturing.
“All of them wanted to come in at the same time, not even minding people who were being attended too.
“What the Minister said was that we should be doing a booking system because of COVID-19.
“But they were not booked at all; because they were physically challenged we allowed them in. When they got in, one of them was so unruly.
“They wanted to come in straight and get into the system and be captured.
Some of them did not want to listen to anything, to the extent that some of them were begging our staff members not to be annoyed,” Aremu said.
According to him, because of COVID-19 and the surge, the NIMC does not allow people to just flood the work stations.
The NIMC boss said: “They should just be calm. We are taking our time to attend to them. Not that they will come here and be unruly and fomenting trouble. We will attend to them.
“We know we must give them priority, yet they must be calm and patient. Despite the fact that they were not booked, we still give them priority. Once we see them outside, we call them.
“Those who came were not booked yet were being unruly. They should be calm, not that they will get to our office and be fomenting trouble, and want to force their way into the system directly.”
He said there were processes to undergo before getting captured because, “we give priority to physically challenged, nursing mothers and elderly people.”
