Luddites, those enraged at the introduction of technology to the work place, and the very, very spiritual, think the Bank Verification Number introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria through the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement Scheme, is an evil device from the pit of hell. They argue that except for the delay of the tribulations aspect, the BVN is tending toward the Bible’s predictions of Armageddon!
They call Revelation 13:16-18 to witness: “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And no man might buy or sell, save He that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name… Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; and his number is Six hundred and threescore and six (666).”
Nigerians without a BVN are already having difficulty in transacting bank business. If you use the ATM card with the Point of Sale device to pay for food at the quick service restaurant, the pharmacy, the clothes and gifts shop, and for online purchases, you are at the age of the mark of the beast! The PIN that identifies you and verifies your transaction has taken matters from banking to mainstream commerce.
Revelation 9:2-4 states: “The locusts that came of the smoke emanating from the pit (of hell!) were allowed to hurt the men which had not the seal of God in their forehead. Their “torment was as of the scorpion when he striketh a man.” Of the forthcoming anguish, Verse 6 says: “In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
Combine the terror of the incubus Gen. Sani Abacha regime to demand for the BVN before you buy essential commodities. Add to that the notion of a Big Brother that perpetually watches and hounds hapless citizens of a woebegone country, and you get the idea of the coming BVN Armageddon dreaded by “churchiuos” Nigerians.
George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984,” is the art that imitates the life of terror in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. In “1984,” people lead dehumanised and fearful lives, with perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, under the control of a privileged elite that prosecutes individual and independent thinking.
It is the same way the ubiquitous KGB secret police kept eternal vigil over the people of the Soviet Union. It monitored, repressed, and compelled citizens to conform to the diktat of the Party Leader and Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU Identity card was a mark of privilege.
It’s the same way Party Leader and Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, and his Nationalist Socialist party used the German state police to wreak terror over other Germans. The Nazi brown shirt was the mark that exempted the owners from the terror of the Gestapo. Auschwitz in Poland is a regrettable reminder of the killing of six million Jews during the Second World War.
The reign of the tyrannical Big Brother Party Leaders of the Soviet and Nazi regimes, who “(sought) power entirely for its own sake… (or as a) tool (for) a totalitarian regime,” were foretold in Revelation Chapter 9:11 which affirmed that the locusts that will torment men will have “a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit…”
Every year, some youths, called “housemates,” opt to suffer some albeit benign indignities in the Big Brother TV reality show that sometimes degenerates into base immorality. It’s an antiseptic version of how citizens live under the watch of the Big Brother of Orwell’s “1984.” The TV reality show trains cameras and tiny lavaliere microphones on the housemates in a purpose-built house.
The video and audio equipment documents on a daily basis the activities of the housemates, who rat on each other, and scheme, as the audience vote, for their own eviction one after the other. The unseen Big Brother, a voice, announces the evictions. The last housemate, usually the wiliest, or the luckiest, gets a prize.
The BVN is part of the CBN’s cashless policy to harvest bank customers’ biometric data, and check fraud in the banking system. It enhances real-time security processes, identifies, and authenticates individuals at the point of transaction through physiological and behavioural attributes like fingerprints and signatures.
With passport photographs no longer reliable, electronic chips, embedded under the skin may be the next tool of the Big Brother state. Census may no longer be necessary; planners can take their figures from number of chips administered.
Giving you the advantage of a unique identity that is verifiable across all banks and online portals, and barring unauthorised access to your funds, is both the strength, and the qualification of the BVN as a mark of the beast! Your PIN code, presumably known to you alone, will only function if you have a BVN. You can confirm that at the next ATM, POS device, or online pay portal. It goes without saying that your cheque won’t be honored if you have no BVN.
The CBN Deputy Director, Mrs. Khadijah Kasim, says, “The biometrics provided (by BVN) have been making it difficult for impersonation… (And) faceless people (who) are engaged in money laundering, (and) other unethical transactions, are also being reduced….” A banker reveals that some depositors can’t access their multiple bank accounts now because the BVN device will merge their multiple identities.
Though Kasim says the BVN provides a single platform that will check financial crimes, she neglects to add that whoever is not on the platform will have serious problems transacting business in the future. That some bank customers cannot access money in their accounts because they had no BVN is a sign of things to come.
America’s nine-digit social security number, issued to citizens, permanent residents, and temporary residents, tracks individuals for social security purposes. It has somewhat become a national identification number for taxation, employment, medical, student, military and other records, though it does not bear a photograph. It is increasingly difficult for anyone in America to get a job, access social security benefits, obtain loans, and operate a bank account without a social security number.
If you have received text messages from your GSM service provider asking that you update your SIM card registration status so that your mobile line will not be tossed, you must be sensitive to a future convergence of your SIM and BVN. It’s only a matter of time, even if no one is telling yet.
Today’s technology makes it possible for whoever is interested to determine where you made your last ATM withdrawal, POS transaction, or received your last GSM phone call. The GPRS technology can even determine where your car is parked. Those who ferreted out terrorist Osama bin Ladin with the satellite and mobile telephone technology can tell you how it works.
This new technology is going to make it awful hard for anyone who cannot conform to function in the world of the future. Big Brother will be using the BVN, GSM SIM card, electronic chips, and other devices to gather biometric data to run the mega-bureaucratic society; signatures and photographs can no longer cut the ice.
PUNCH
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