Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has announced that 173 private centres and 30 state government institutions across the country have been licenced to enrol residents of Nigeria for the National Identity Number (NIN).
These centres and government agencies were approved by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Ali Pantami, according to a statement issued by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
“The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim [Pantami], has approved the licensing of 173 agents and 30 state governments/public sector institutions to conduct enrolment of all persons, including legal residents into the National Identity Database (NIDB) on behalf of NIMC.
“Pursuant to the above, find the list of all the successful firms who satisfied all the evaluation criteria as stated in the advert for the Expression of Interest (EOI) of each of the respective categories in full,” the statement said.
“The commission congratulates all those who have been cleared to conduct enrollment of all persons on behalf of NIMC for data capture services,” it added.
NIMC’s statement comes a day after the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) gave a two-week ultimatum to telecom service providers to block phone numbers without NIN.
After an urgent meeting of key stakeholders in the communications industry convened by Mr Pantami, it was resolved that from Wednesday, December 16, 2020, all subscribers are to provide valid NIN to update SIM registration records.
It was said telecommunication service providers who fail to block sim cards unregistered with NIN after the two-weeks risk withdrawal of their operational license.
Outrage followed the decision as people complained that the timeline was short amid a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
It was also argued that the country could link the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN), NIN, the international passport, driver’s license, SIM card registration and voters’ card to the SIM cards because they all have information of individuals.
But on Wednesday, the House of Representatives asked the NCC to extend the deadline to February 28, 2021, because the two weeks notice was too short to capture all mobile phone subscribers.
Meanwhile, all registered persons can retrieve their NIN by dialling *346# on their registered phone number for all the major networks.
You can view the list of the centres for NIN registration approved by NIMC Approved Data Capturing Agents
