TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Aliyu Aziz as the new director-general and chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

Abdul-Hamid Umar, NIMC’s general manager, corporate communications, announced this in a statement, saying the development followed the expiration of the tenure of Chris Onyemenam, the outgoing head of the agency.

According to the statement, Aziz, a former director in the commission, retired in 2014.

“Aziz was a pioneer staff of NIMC and the director, information technology/National Identity database department of NIMC before he retired in 2014,” the statement read.

“With more than 30 years of post qualification experience in engineering and information technology, spanning both the private and public sectors, Aziz holds a B.Eng in civil engineering and M.Sc in Structural Engineering with Specialty in Computer Aided Design from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.

“Before he joined NIMC at inception, Aziz was the information technology adviser to the minister, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration, where he pioneered the implementation of the first e-government solution that won a Microsoft award in 2006.

“He  served as the sub-committee technical chairman on the presidential committee on harmonisation of ICT which resulted in the formation of Galaxy Backbone.

“He was also a deputy director, information technology at the bureau of public enterprises and the principal consultant, Management Information System (MIS) department, Afri-Projects Consortium.”

The statement added that Onyemenam was a director at the secretariat of the presidential implementation committee in the office of the secretary to the government of the federation.

The committee oversaw the setting up of the National Identity Management Commission in 2007.

The new NIMC boss is a member of several professional bodies, including the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (NIStructE), where he is the current vice-president.

Aziz is also  said to be a member of the Computer Association of Nigeria (COAN) and the Internet Society (ISOC).