The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced that telecommunication companies and some private companies in Nigeria are now licensed to register and issue NIN to subscribers who are yet to get their identity numbers.
The Director-General of the commission, Aliyu Aziz revealed recently that the development is to reduce the number of people clustering at different NIMC centres around the country for registration.
“We have licensed private and public sector organisations including telcos so as to create more centres,” Aziz said.
The Nigerian government in December 2020 announced the synchronisation of all SIM cards on the network of telecommunications companies with the National Identity Number (NIN) before December 30, 2020, adding that all SIMs not registered before the deadline will be blocked. This was however to February 9, 2021. The extension, according to the Task Force was to save Nigerians from the hassle of the earlier time frame.
Despite the extension, the process has not been hitch-free at the centres as crowds continue to besiege registration centres nationwide with many calling for outright suspension of the NIN registration due to the violation of COVID-19 protocols.
