The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has declared that there is currently no active SIM card in Nigeria that cannot be traced to a National Identification Number (NIN).
The Executive Vice-Chairman of the organization, Mr. Aminu Maida, made this assertion at a corporate event held in Lagos recently. This is good news for the country, which has struggled to enforce the law since 2020.
At the end of August, the NCC set a deadline of September 14, 2024 on what was then called the “deadline” for Nigerians who failed to comply with the federal government’s directives.
The SIM-NIN collaboration was launched in December 2020, and the government said it was an initiative aimed at strengthening national security by combating crimes committed using mobile communication services.
After multiple deadline extensions over the past four years and the controversy the process has stirred, the NCC now claims the process has been successfully completed.
Maida said despite the fact that the process had been “a bit painful” for Nigerians, there were many benefits to completing the exercise.
“Currently, there is no phone number that cannot be associated with a verified NIN. It is not a guessing number, it is a verified number,” Maida said, as quoted by the Guardian Nigeria newspaper.
The official said that the SIM card and NIN are fully linked, making it easier to trace criminal activities.
The SIM-NIN collaboration has been criticized for not doing enough to curb crimes such as kidnappings, which continue to occur frequently, especially along Nigeria’s major highways, and the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria.
The Guardian also reported that the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the completion of the SIM-NIN collaboration exercise was essential to check criminality.
Nigerian authorities have also hailed the SIM-NIN linkage activity as one of the key boosts to the country’s rapid digital identity issuance program, which now allows more than 110 million Nigerians to own a NIN. Now it looks like this.
Article topics
Africa | Biometrics | Identity Verification | National Identification Number (NIN) | National Security | Nigeria | SIM Card Registration
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