The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced that Telecommunications companies will now be able to register Nigerians who have not gotten their National Identification Number.
The new measure was put in place to reduce the large crowds at the different NIMC centers.
Asides from the telecommunications companies, some other private and public organizations have also been licensed by the commission to provide NINs in order to address the crowds at the commission’s offices.
Director-General, NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, confirmed this to Punch on Tuesday.
On December 15, 2020, the Federal Government declared that after December 30, 2020, all SIMs that were not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked.
It later extended the December 30, 2020 deadline following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020, to January 19, 2021.
It also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020, to February 9, 2021, but many organizations had called for a further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process due to the large crowds who had 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.
Lucky said the 21-day ultimatum earlier issued the management of NIMC was still in force, although there had been calls for the union to step down the ultimatum.