FG, Banks Join Hands To Make Special ID Cards For Senior Citizens

The Federal Government and other relevant officials including Deposit Money Banks (DMB) held a meeting on Tuesday in Abuja, where they discussed providing functional three-in-one identity cards for senior citizens in Nigeria.

Nigeria's National Senior Citizens Center's Director General, Emem Omokaro, said that this special ID card will help to improve senior citizens' life in various ways, adding that the production of these cards requires public-private partnerships.

"This roundtable meeting, we hope, being a joint novel and maiden meeting on funding possibilities for the production of functional and seamless (three-in-one) identity cards for senior citizens, would provide equal opportunity for all present to contribute your perspectives and ideas to the national project," Omokaro explained, Punch reported.

She went on to explain that the National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC)'s vision for creating this multi-purpose card is to "serve as a vehicle for financial inclusion, conducive economic and social enterprise empowerment instrument and access to age-friendly physical environment outcomes for Nigeria's senior citizens – a population most left behind."

NSCC's director of Active Ageing and Support Services, Kayode Fagbemi, also shared the benefits of this multi-purpose card for senior citizens, noting that it will serve as - national identity cards, bank cards, and senior citizens cards.

Fagbemi shared that this card will contain vital information about the senior citizen that will help them in traveling as they will get concessions on railway tickets. Moreover, there will be separate counters or queues available for booking tickets.

"Airlines should be able to offer discounts on domestic flights," he added. "Separate counters or queues should be available for booking tickets. Public transport in the states should be able to offer discounts for senior citizens."

Fagbmi shared that the purpose of this meeting was to work out modalities for making these special ID cards for people above the age of 60.

"To deliberate and determine the designs of the cards, create awareness, as well as address older persons keying into acquiring the cards and taking part in the benefits that come with the card," he added. "These benefits include discounts that will be placed for older persons from pharmacies, restaurants and other services such as transport, hospitals and many more."

Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Engineer Aliyu Aziz, shared that they are currently working on building a database for senior citizens across the country to ensure that each of them gets a unique value.

"NIMC is the repository of the data encrypted in the card, the banks and the NSCC are the issuer of the card," Aziz said.