BUHARI APPOINTS AZIZ AS NIMC CEO, REPLACES ONYEMENAM

President 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).

AbdulHamid Umar, NIMC’s general manager, corporate communications, announced the development in a Monday statement, saying his appointment followed the expiration of the tenure of Mr. Chris Onyemenam as CEO.

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. 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 said.

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).