Development of A National Social Security Numbering System

Introduction

1.0 Introduction

The rate of growth of crime, insurrection and other vices in Nigeria in recent times is alarming! An influx of illegal immigrants across Nigerian territorial borders from neighbouring countries like Togo, Cameroun, Chad, Niger Republic, etc. is a main cause of social unrest in the country, which includes but not limited to kidnapping, outright massacre, armed robbery, assassination, usurping. Unfortunately, our security operatives are seriously faced with the challenge of correctly identifying offenders promptly owing partly to the fact that the country is yet to generate, assign and administer Social Security Numbers to well over 200 million of her citizens, and thousands of legal migrants [1].

Nigerian governments therefore need to assign a unique and National Social Security Number (NSSN) to each citizen of the country, and legal migrant by putting his or her Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on a central database as an efficient method of identification for several purposes such as: security intelligence services, orderly nation administration, to mention but a few.

The use of the Social Security Number (SSN) has expanded significantly since its inception in 1936. An SSN as it is called in the some countries is a 9-digit number consisting of a 4-digit serial number, a 2 digit year of birth indicator, and a 3-digit number indicating the geographic area of registration [1].

This study focuses on developing a database-driven Social Security Numbering scheme for the Federal Republic of Nigeria whose intent and purpose are to randomly generate and assign Social Security numbers to millions of existing and future generation of Nigerians for orderly administration and crime control using computers, tablets, etc.

The research focuses on developing a National Social Security Numbering System (NSSN) that can uniquely identify each bona-fide citizen of Nigeria and legal migrant and hold their Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in a centralized database server.

1.1 Statement of Problem

The current attempt by the federal government of Nigeria to identify Nigerian citizens with their Driver‟s Licenses, National Identification Cards, Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) Voters Registration Cards and ECOWAS International Passports is characterized by the following problems:

There is no particular unified method of identifying millions of Nigerian citizens and migrants, and consequently, capturing their individual records or profiles in bits from the Driver‟s Licenses, National ID cards, International Passports, etc. is not comprehensive.

Many Nigerians do not readily have all the above mentioned means of identification, and thus, it is not easy to identify each person in the country;

None of these existing means of identification holds complete information about a citizen such as bank records, academic qualifications, cultural background information (nativity, village or town name), etc.;

There are some discrepancies in the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) entered on some of the above mentioned means of identification for some people owing to falsification or hoarding of information;

There is no unified central database anywhere in the country for official reference.

1.2 Aim and Objectives

The objectives of this project are to:

Develop a piece of software for National Social Security Numbering that can uniquely identify each bona-fide citizen of Nigeria and legal migrant and hold their Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in a centralized database server;

Develop a security measure that will make it almost impossible to falsify one‟s Personal Identifiable Information (PII);

Provide a unified and centralized database management system for the National Social Security Numbering project for the Federal Republic of Nigeria;

1.3 Significance of the Project

A unified and centralized database management system with the capacity of hosting nearly 1 billion randomly generated National Social Security Numbers will be quite instrumental to government officials not only for citizenship identification purposes, but for orderly national administration. With this software engineering effort, tracing the identity of any person on Nigerian soil can be done swiftly and simultaneously from any part of the world over the web using computers, mobile phones, tablets and any internet-enabled device.

1.4 Scope of the Study

The scope of this study covers the entire Nigerian population for which it is developed to generate national social security numbers (NSSNs) for its citizens and legal immigrants.

1.5 Limitation of the Study

Owing to the limited time frame allotted for the commencement and completion of my postgraduate studies in the university, there were certain features that were not incorporated in this national social security numbering system. Biometric verification correlations such as finger prints, facial image recognition, voice recognition and colour of retina could not be incorporated in this national social security numbering system.

1.6 Definition of Terms

NSSN:

National Social Security Number is a proposed 9-digit number that will uniquely identify a citizen of Nigeria or legal immigrant in the country.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML5):

This is a text-based markup tool for describing the content of a web page. It is useful for formatting headings, footers, and write-ups on a web document. HTML5 stands for a latest version 5 of Hypertext Markup Language.

JavaScript (JS):

This is a default web-based scripting language used for adding behavior to a web document. JS has a large library from which this study chose JQuery for developing an a graphical user interface for the NSSN system;
Asynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Markup Language (AJAX): A programming language built from a combination of many other programming languages used for construction of search engines and its optimization;

Hypertext Pre-Processor (PHP5):

This is a web-based server-side scripting language used establishing communication between an HTML document at the client side with a hosting server at the server side; PHP5 stands for a latest version 5 of Hypertext Preprocessor;

Frontend:

This is another name for a Graphical User Interface (GUI) of software application.

MYSQL:

MYSQL relational database server is a backend software that is responsible for storing data in database objects such as tables, records, queries, reports, etc. and therefore becomes a de facto repository for some Universe of Discourse (UoD);

PHPMyAdmin:

This is a database management system used for administering MYSL database server mainly through its frontend.
UoD: Universe of Discourse or Domain of Discourse is a database parlance for a repository of related data for an organization or institution.

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS3):

This is another text-based editing tool used for presenting or styling the layout of a web or HTML document. It is useful for formatting font type, font size, font colour, text position on a web page, text justification, etc. It can be defined as an internal or external file relative to an HTML document.

AAA:

This stands for Authentication, Authorisation and Access. It is an acronym for the three vital phases for authentication of login credentials such as username and password, authorisation of a user whose login parameters have been authenticated and granting access to a user to the requested resource or page.