The Federal Government of Nigeria has extended the deadline for National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) data verification till the end of the year.
The exercise was scheduled to end on October 31.
The extension was disclosed by the Director of Public Affairs of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, and the Head of Corporate Communications of Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Kayode Adegoke, in a joint statement recently.
According to the statement, the extension decision was made after Mobile Network Operators and other industry stakeholders appealed for the extension of the exercise.
The statement added that 66 million unique NIN enrolments have been captured since the exercise commenced with an average of three to four SIMs linked to the NIN.
The statement read: “The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has conveyed the approval of the Federal Government to extend the deadline for the National Identity Number-Subscriber Identity Module data verification. Citizens and legal residents are urged to complete the process before the end of the year 2021.
“The decision to extend the deadline was made further to appeals by the Mobile Network Operators and other industry stakeholders, soliciting for a further extension to ensure better compliance with government’s directive and to avoid widening the digital divide.
“The extension would also provide the enabling environment for the registration of Nigerians in remote areas, Diaspora, schools, hospitals, worship centres, as well as foreigners, diplomatic missions, those in other areas that were hitherto unreachable, and increase enrolments in countries with a significant number of Nigerians.
“As of October 30, 2021, there were over 9,500 enrolment systems and over 8,000 NIN enrolment centres within and outside the country- this has significantly eased the NIN enrolment process and subsequent linkage of NIN to SIM.”
