The Nigerian government through the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has extended the deadline for the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise to April 6, 2021.
The extension is contained in a message conveyed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, stressing that the extension is to give Nigerians and legal residents more time to integrate their NIN with the SIM.
This decision is the aftermath of a meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration which held yesterday and was chaired by the Minister and attended by key stakeholders, including the EVC/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), DG/CEO of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), DG/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON). Others include the MD/CEOs of MTN, Airtel, 9Mobile, Ntel, Spectranet and SMILE, as well as the COO of Globacom.
Meanwhile, a total of 56.18 million NINs have been collected by the mobile network operators. Each NIN is usually tied to an average of 3 to 4 SIMs and this infers that the current figure accounts for a significant portion of the existing SIMs. This number of NINs collected represents a significant increase when compared with the 47.8 million reported by the Technical Committee on January 18, 2021.
Furthermore, over 1060 registration centres for NIN have been activated and made operational by NIMC across the country, while Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have opened hundreds of centres and are rapidly deploying resources to open thousands of other NIN enrolment centres across states of the country. This is in line with the policy of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to enhance security and make the process of obtaining NINs easier for Nigerians.