With palpable panic gripping the country over the full linkage of the National Identification Number (NIN) with SIMs, the federal government on Tuesday, January 19, insisted that the February 9 deadline still stands.
Speaking on the development, Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) said the telecoms operators have been told to shut down SIMs not linked with NIN after the last day.
The federal government said the February 9 deadline still stands. Credit:@NCCgov
But NCC, through the Technical Implementation Committee (TIC) under the Ministerial Task Force (MTF), said there is no going back on its decision.
It, however, expressed satisfaction over the turnout and “impressive response” of Nigerians as 47.8 million subscribers have submitted their NIN to their respective service providers, Daily Sun reports.
Part of the statement issued by NCC director of public affairs, Ikechukwu Adinde, read:
“So far, a total of 47.8 million NINs have been collected by the mobile operators. At an average of 3 to 4 SIMs per subscriber.
“This means many millions will be linked up before the deadline in February 2021.”
According to the electoral commission, this will help to tackle the problem of underage voting in some parts of the country.
Speaking with The Punch newspaper, one of the national commissioners at INEC whose name was not given made this disclosure, adding that the final decision would soon be reached and officially announced to the public.
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