The federal government Tuesday commended Nigerians for persevering and enduring the challenges associated with the NIN-SIM linkage exercise.
Director Public Affairs Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde quoted the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Ali Isa Ibrahim (Pantami) as saying this in Abuja while receiving the report of the technical implementation committee under the ministerial task force on the progress of the exercise.
The statement said: “At the end of a review meeting on 18th January 2021, the Technical Implementation Committee under the Ministerial Task Force has reported significant progress in the ongoing NIN-SIM linkage exercise.
“So far, a total of 47.8 million NINs have been collected by the mobile operators. At an average of three to four SIMs per subscriber, this means many millions will be linked up before the deadline in February 2021.
“Reacting to the report, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, expressed satisfaction with this commendable achievement.
“He expressed the Federal Government’s appreciation for the commitment demonstrated by all stakeholders and citizens and urged them to submit their NINs before 9th February, 2021 deadline.”
The statement further said the minister urged “the technical team to fast-track the processes so that the project is delivered soonest.
“The Technical Committee drew attention to the App developed by Federal Government which allows subscribers to link up to a maximum of seven (7) SIMs to their NIN.”
Pantami reminded “Nigerians to secure and protect their NINs, urging subscribers to desist from selling their NINs or allowing others to use their NINs for registration.
“For any action committed with the SIM, good or bad, it will be officially traced and attached to the NIN owner,” the minister warned.
Operators upbeat
In a related development,telecom operators have assured they won’t block lines whose owners had forwarded their NIN to them ahead the January 19 (Tuesday) deadline.
Chairman Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Gbenga Adebayo said this while speaking to journalists late Tuesday in Lagos.
He said Telecoms firms had so far submitted about 43 million NIN to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for verification for proper registration with their respective Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs).
He said: “I don’t have the number of SIM cards that have been linked but at the last count, NIMC told us that they have about 43 million Nigerians who have NINs. So, we will be safe to assume that a large percentage of these citizens have delivered their NINs to the operators by way of dialling the USSD access code and/or visiting the operators’ websites and uploading their NINs on the websites. And by extension, I will be right to say that operators have delivered those NINs to NIMC.
“Now, the second part of it which is not in our control is, how many of these numbers uploaded by the operators and forwarded to NIMC, have been harmonised? How many of them have been verified? That is not in our control, but as an industry, the large numbers we received from subscribers have since been delivered to NIMC.”
Adebayo further said NIMC owes it a duty to educate the public on the number of NINs that were verified and cleared for harmonisation with SIMs.
Blocking lines?
Asked whether the government would block the SIMs of subscribers who didn’t have their SIMs registered despite submitting their NINs to their service providers, the ALTON chairman said such SIMs would not be blocked.
“If you already have your NIN and you have delivered the number to your service provider and it has been acknowledged and forwarded to NIMC, I don’t think the penalty will be there for you as from tomorrow (Tuesday) if your SIM has not been registered with the NIN.
“This is because as far as you are concerned as a subscriber, you have uploaded that number to your operator and forwarded to NIMC. Now, further interrogation of that means that you are not supposed to be penalised because you have done what you are required to do to your service provider and to NIMC,” the telecoms explained.
They said only those who either did not have the NINs or failed to deliver same to their service providers, would be sanctioned.
The federal government had December 15, 2020, directed the telecoms operators to block subscribers who had not registered their SIMs with valid NINs by December 30, 2020.
Following a public outcry against the earlier announcement, the federal government extended the December 30, 2020 deadline to January 19, 2021, and also gave 6 weeks extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020 to February 9, 2021.
Meanwhile, some Nigerians have called for further extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process, saying a greater number of the populace was yet to get registered owing to associated risk of contacting COVID-19 at the overcrowded registration centres.
