e-Revolution swoops on Nigeria …AS CHAMS commits N65b

• To boost e-access; public identity management • Experts smell big trouble for fraudsters

AS the Federal Government strategises to rid Nigeria of electronic-driven economic and financial crimes, one of the nation's leading identity management and cards manufacturing company, Chams Nigeria Plc, in a major boost to the efforts, has earmarked a whooping N65 billion for e-revolution in the country.

The dream revolution will be championed through the outfit's digital malls, points of sales(POS) and access terminals. The digital mall tagged "ChamsCity," which has made the Guinness Records , is named after one of the subsidiaries of the Chams Group, facilitates transactions in payment, identification and large-scale data management.

The Chams Group incorporates firms that offer the whole range of services in identity management, payment and transactional systems.

Already, the outfit in the past two months has established two digital malls in Lagos and Abuja., each installed with over 1000 multi-media, internet-enabled computers.. The Guinness World Records has certified the Abuja ChamsCity "as the largest Internet Café in the world with 1027 computer terminals available on four floors as verified in December 2008."

The digital malls, which adopt world-class procedures for registration, allows citizens to register and be recognized by their distinct identities since their bio-data, fingerprints and photographs would be captured and used as personal identification for all transactions or activities at the centres

A company source on Wednesday last week, told National Daily during the commissioning of the Abuja ChamsCity, that the e-revolution projects, would see the installation of 30 digital malls, 15,000 Point of Sales (POS) terminals and 25,000 ChamsAccess terminals nationwide within the next one year, would cost about N65 billion. Each of the digital malls costs about two billion naira , the source said.

"It is very difficult to calculate the cost of each of the facilities to the last kobo but what I can tell you is that we have spent about N4 billion on the two that have been completed. The plan, like you are aware is to have at least 30 of these world-class facilities built across various locations in the country within the next year. This will be complemented with other projects like the POS which the managing director spoke about earlier," the source said. However, when National Daily contacted, the Managing Director, Mr. Demola Aladekomo, he simply said: "the investment on these projects is substantial."

With the latest commissioning the second ChamsCity, the company seems fully committed to tackle the problem of poor database for Nigerians most of whom engage in various internet-based business and electronic transactions globally and by so doing, help to improve the country's credibility in the global business environment.

Speaking at the occasion, the company's boss explained that the Chams Group was committing tremendous efforts and resources to the projects which would help in improving the efficiency of identity management for Nigerians and corporate entities.

Describing identity management as the cornerstone of the company's activities since 1991, the IT expert said that he was happy that Chams has been involved in public-private partnership with some key public parastatals like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and proved its worth as a leading cards manufacturing and identity management solutions provider.

On the importance of the digital malls facility to national identity management, he said that "the facilities will give Nigerians the opportunity to transact business on a more secured platform. It is going to ensure that that particular issue that has put a bit of question mark on Nigerians is removed. Now, when we get to the cyberworld or the internet whatever is done through the Chams' centres is uniquely identified. So if you make a commitment in any of our cities with any of our devices, you are going to be held responsible for it and you are going to be trapped wherever your village may be."

"We are going to make sure that 30 more of these facilities are commissioned between now and 2009. Also in 2009, we are going to be deploying about 15,000 Point of Sales (POS) terminals which will also be used for identity for any of our transactions. We strongly believe that with the size of our country with between 140 and 150 million people the 32 ChamsCities we will be having in 2009 in addition to the 15,000 POS is still going to be like scratching the surface" Aladekomo said.

Industry analysts have argued that if the project is given the required policy frameworks support and embraced by public and private sector organizations, particularly those involved in electronic financial transactions, e-registration and e-recruitment, the country may be building, albeit gradually, a reliable database for the citizens.

An IT expert who spoke on the ChamsCity facility, argued that if the Federal and State Governments would take advantage of the facility for various identity management exercises like elections, examinations and registration of students in tertiary institutions and other agencies as well as records of employees in public and private sectors, criminal activities, especially those that border on financial and economic crimes through the Internet would be seriously reduced.

"The Federal Government should make it compulsory for all educated Nigerians to register in the ChamsCities so that the problem of identity which encourages many Nigerians to engage in fraudulent activities by using the Internet as their channel would be solved. If all undergraduates, the unemployed and employees in the public and private sectors are made to register through the facilities that uses by biometric data to identify all users, criminals would think twice before going into fraudulent engagements. The implications of this for our national image in the larger world cannot be over-emphasised," the expert said.

With the biometric feature, all transactions or commitments made by registered members or users through the facilities cannot be repudiated since everybody has peculiar biometrics data through which they can easily by tracked and made to account for their actions.

But for the e-revolution project to assist in check-mating financial and economic and other fraudulent practices by Nigerians in the country, to a large extent, industry experts say, will depend on how the various tiers of government, particularly the Federal Government, embrace the digital mall idea and translate the facilities to veritable platform for managing identities of citizens in their domains.

The experts were optimistic that the nation may soon be bursting the ring of some major mafia and thereby making a huge sweep of the fraudsters maligning its image, if the e-networking project is fully consummated.(By Tola Akinmutimi, National Daily)