ADJUMANI LEADERS SPEAK OUT ON THE MASS NATIONAL ID RENEWAL.

By Bazio Doreen – Adjumani District.

In Adjumani District, the National Identity Cards renewal exercise was launched on Monday May 26th 2025 at both the district headquarters and the Office of the Resident District Commissioner where civil servants and public servants were given an opportunity to renew their National Identity Cards. Adjumani received 28 kits, with 2 kits placed in each Sub County and the rest at government institutions.

While addressing the gathering, the District Chairperson of Adjumani, Hon. Anyama Ben, rallied the leaders to mobilize their communities to take part in the exercise, observing that the National Identity Card as become an integral part of assessing many critical services both within and outside the country.

“There are people who travel a lot. You can use the National ID to travel within East Africa. I call upon everyone to embrace this exercise because in the future having an ID will be a mandatory requirement for accessing critical services like Health just as the bank and other sectors are already implementing it,” Hon. Anyama observed.

Hon. Anyama also tasked the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) to utilize local leaders like Local Council I Chairpersons (LCIs) in refugee host sub-counties to enable registration assistants to differentiate between refugees and nationals so as to avoid disrupting the peaceful co-existence milestones already achieved by these communities.

“We have refugees who also belong to the Ma’di, Kakwa, Kuku, and Acholi tribes. This similarity could easily lead to misidentification or fraud,” Hon. Anyama said.

In response, the NIRA District Registration Officer, Balaba Fred, revealed that NIRA had put in place measures to help registration assistants verify details of individuals before enrolling them in the renewal process. The new IDs are expected to remain valid for ten years.  

“First-time applicants are required to present an LCI letter with their personal details, and this should also be endorsed by the District Internal Security Officer (DISO),” Balaba assured the district leaders. 

NIRA has deployed 5,300 biometric registration machines across the country, with the exercise expected to be extended up to the parish level. The authority has also additionally formed verification committees in each district chaired by the Resident District Commissioners (RDCs). About Ugx 666.85 billion has been allocated for the exercise targeting 15.8 million IDs for eligible Ugandans.