The Federal Government has announced the extension of the deadline for Nigerians to link their National Identification Numbers (NINs) to their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) by one month.
The deadline extension follows a request presented to President Muhammadu Buhari to that effect and his subsequent endorsement.
This disclosure is contained in a press statement issued on Friday, April 2, 2021. It was jointly signed by the Director of Public Affairs of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Ikechukwu Adinde and the Head of Corporate Communications at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Kayode Adegoke.
The approval to extend the period of the NIN-SIM linkage to May 6 was given at the meeting of the Ministerial Task Force on NIN-SIM data linkage and key stakeholders held on Thursday in Abuja.
The statement noted that over 51 million people now have their NINs with a significant increase in the monthly enrolments.
The statement partly reads, “Based on the updates of the NIN-registration process, over 51 million people have been assigned NINs. There are many people who have enrolled and are in the process of being assigned NINs. With each individual having an average of three to four SIMs, the total number of SIMs tied to NINs would be close to the total number of registered SIMs in the country.
The current number of monthly enrollments has increased significantly to about 2.6 million registrations. There has also been a remarkable increase in the number of enrolment centres across the country with about 3,800 centres available for enrollments. There are also many more new centres in the pipeline,” the statement said.
The meeting chaired by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, was attended by various key stakeholders, including the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa.
The EFCC boss, while addressing the meeting said that the NIN-SIM card linkage would support the Federal Government’s effort in checkmating the activities of fraudsters and cybercriminals.
Pantami, thanked Nigerians for their patience and compliance with the Federal Government’s directive on the NIN-SIM registration exercise and reiterated the government’s commitment to continue taking decisions aimed at easing the pains of the citizens with regard to issues related to NIN and SIM registration.
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