As Reps ask NCC to extend deadline for SIM update
The Federal Government says it has licensed 173 centres and 30 state government institutions to conduct the enrollment of the National Identity Number (NIN) across the country.
According to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) on its website yesterday, The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), has approved the licensing of 173 Agents and 30 State Governments/Public Sector Institutions to conduct enrolment of all persons including legal residents into the National Identity Database (NIDB) on behalf of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
Pursuant to the above, find the list of all the successful firms who satisfied all the evaluation criteria as stated in the Advert for the Expression of Interest (EOI) of each of the respective categories in full. The Commission congratulates all those who have been cleared to conduct enrollment of all persons on behalf of NIMC for data capture services.
All registered persons can retrieve their NIN by dialing *346# on their registered phone number for all the major networks.
NIMCs statement comes a day after the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) gave a two-week ultimatum to telecom service providers to block phone numbers without NIN.
The directive has since sparked an outrage amongst Nigerians who argue that government agencies can retrieve their information on other data platforms to update their sim card registration.
Currently, Nigeria has multiple citizens collection data platforms the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN), National Identification Numbers (NIN), passport, drivers license, SIM card registration and voters card all having the same information of individuals.
The Federal Government has said telecom service providers who fail to block sim cards unregistered with NIN after the two-weeks risk withdrawal of their operational license. The directive has been widely criticised by Nigerians, especially on social media.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has asked the NCC to extend the deadline given to Nigerians to update their SIM card registration with their National Identification Numbers (NINs).
At yesterdays plenary session, the house asked the NCC to extend the two-week deadline it gave for the exercise to 10 weeks. Considering a motion by Ndudi Elumelu, minority leader, the house noted that though the initiative is laudable, the timing is very wrong.
The lawmakers subsequently voted that the deadline be extended to 10 weeks and asked the committee on communications to ensure compliance.
