By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has extended the deadline for the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise by eight weeks with the deadline now April 6, 2021.
According to a report by Punch, this was disclosed by the Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Ikechukwu Adinde.
Mr Adinde explained that the extension was conveyed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, during the meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration held on February 1, 2021.
The deadline had earlier been given to all Nigerians and legal residents to enrol for their NINs and link them on or before February 9, 2021, but after calls from stakeholders, the registration had to be extended.
Recently, the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), under the aegis of Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), claimed to have collected over 50 million NINs and transferred same to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for verification.
The federal government had in December licensed 203 public and private institutions to carry out the exercise but complaints about COVID-19 had led many to stay away from the programme.
Telcos had, however, started to do the exercise with MTN hoping to expand the registration exercises across the federation. Other heavyweights, Airtel and Globacom began enrolment last week.
Modupe Gbadeyanka