The Federal Government has extended NIN and SIM card linkage deadline from April to 6th May 2021.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami disclosed this in a meeting of the Ministerial Task Force on the NIN-SIM data linkage, which chaired in Abuja.
The meeting was 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 Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Also present at the meeting were representative of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).
Others included the NCC Executive Commissioners Technical Services and Stakeholder Management, MD/CEOs of MTN, Airtel, EMTS (9Mobile), NTEL, Spectranet and SMILE, as well as the COO of Glo.
According to the Minister, the request for the extension was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari and he endorsed it.
On the updates of the NIN-registration process, the meeting confirmed that , 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 3 to 4 SIMs, the total number of SIMs tied to NINs would 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.
The Chairman of the EFCC who addressed the meeting stated that the NIN-SIM linkage would support the Federal Government in checkmating the activities of fraudsters and cybercriminals.
Recall that the Federal Government had earlier extended the NIN-SIM linkage deadline to April 6, 2021 following a widespread protested that greeted the initial time line.
Reviewed by Jude
on
April 02, 2021
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