Telecom, private companies now licenced to produce NIN

Telecommunications companies have now been licensed to register Nigerians who do not have National Identity Number  (NIN)

According to NIMC, the reason is so as to reduce the large crowds at the offices of the National Identity Management Commission.

Director-General, NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, said some other private and public organisations had also been licensed by the commission to provide NINs in order to address the crowds at commission’s offices.

According to reports from the PUNCH on Tuesday, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, had constituted a committee to address the demands of NIMC employees.

Also read: How to link phone number to National Identification Number (NIN), how retrieve NIN number, how to register for NIN

NIMC workers downed their tools on 7 January 2021 in protest against the poor welfare issues at the commission, but their strike was suspended after the intervention of the minister.

Responding to an enquiry as regards measures taken by NIMC with respect to complains by citizens and the crowds at the commission’s offices, mobile network operators have now been empowered to also give the identity numbers.

“We have licensed private and public sector organisations including telcos (telecommunications companies) so as to create more centres,” Aziz, a staff of NIMc, stated in a WhatsApp message to PUNCH’s correspondent.

On 15 December 2020, the Federal Government declared that after 30 December 2020, all SIMs that were not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked.

See Also: MNOs confirm NIN registration extension

It later extended the 30 December 2020 deadline following widespread opposition to the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from 30 December 2020 to 19 January.

It also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from 30 December 2020 to 9 February 2021, but many organisations had called for further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process because of the sheer number of Nigerians who are yet to have their NINs.

On the meeting between NIMC workers and the communication minister, the President, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, NIMC Unit, Asekokhai Lucky, said some resolutions were reached.

He said the minister told the union that some of the demands being presented by the workers were new to him, as he only took over the supervisory role of NIMC in October 2020.

“So what he (Pantami) did was to set up a seven-man committee to work on the issues and submit a report to him in two weeks’ time,” Lucky stated.