The federal government on Satuŕday extended the ongoing national identification number (NIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM) integration exercise till December 31.
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, disclosed this in a statement on Saturday.
The deadline was shifted from October 31.
The statement was jointly signed by NCC spokesperson Ikechukwu Adinde, and spokesperson of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Kayode Adegoke.
The statement said the decision to extend the deadline was due 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,” the statement said.
It said over 66 million unique NIN have been issued, with an average of three to four SIMs per NIN.
“However, a significant part of the populace is yet to be registered into the National Identity Database (NIDB), which may be due to some challenges which the Federal Government has looked into and has made efforts to alleviate, hence the need to extend the deadline,” the statement added.
“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.”
