Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has announced that the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise has been extended till June 30, 2021.
This announcement was made through a jointly-signed statement issued recently by the Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde; and the Head, Corporate Communications, National Identity Management Commission, Kayode Adegoke.
The statement is titled, ‘NIN Enrolment Reaches 54 Million as FG Approves 30th of June as NIN-SIM Verification Deadline’.
It was gathered that this decision was arrived at during a virtual meeting attended by the Honourable Minister, Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Adeolu Akande; Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of NCC, Umar Dambatta; and the Director-General/CEO of NIMC, Aliyu Azeez.
Pantami made it known that the extension was announced based on unanimous requests from every stakeholder and “in order to make it easier for all citizens and legal residents to register.”
The statement read: “Significant progress has been made in the NIN-SIM verification process. For example, almost 54 million people have obtained their NIN and this can translate to up to 190 million mobile numbers since empirical evidence suggests that each unique NIN maps to 3 to 4 phone lines.”
