Op-Ed: Nigeria’s Identification Card Is a Move to Centralize the Nation’s Financial Institutions

The West African nation of Nigeria has just announced the launch of a new national identity card. This might not seem like much of a big deal to most people as many countries have national identification cards. It might also come as a surprise to people who remember that the voters of Nigeria already voted down this idea only ten years ago. This attempt however has several crucial differences from the last attempt. This time, the politicians in Lagos have added a new wrinkle: They have combined a national identity card with a MasterCard debit card. This effectively ties the government identity database directly to the banking and financial industry (and vice versa) and all but precluding any currency except bank accepted currency from becoming successfully in the economy.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2014-09-01.

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