The Federal Government has extended the ongoing NIN-SIM linkage in the country.
This was the highpoint of a meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on the NIN-SIM data linkage on Thursday in Abuja, chaired by the Minster of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami.
A statement by Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and his counterpart in the National Identity Management Commission, Mr. Kayode Adegoke; noted that the request for extension of the deadline by President Muhammadu Buhari was approved by the meeting which had 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), Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Representative of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) in attendance.
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.
It was disclosed that based on the updates of the NIN-registration process, over 51 million people have been assigned NINs, even as 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 be close to the total number of registered SIMs in the country.
Also, the current number of monthly enrolments has increased significantly to about 2.6 million registrations. There has also been a remarkable increase in the number of enrolment centres across the country with about 3,800 centres available for enrolments. There are also many more new centres in the pipeline.
The Chairman of the EFCC addressed the meeting and stated that the NIN-SIM linkage would support the Federal Government in checkmating the activities of fraudsters and cybercriminals.
The Minister noted the importance of obtaining feedback from all stakeholders in order to ensure that the NIN-SIM linkage process is one that cannot easily be compromised.
