The Federal Government on Saturday announced the extension of the National Identity Number (NIN) and SIM linkage exercise till the end of the year.
This was made known in a joint statement issued by the Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, and the Head, Corporate Communications, Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Kayode Adegoke.
They said over 66 million unique National Identity Numbers (NIN) have been issued but a significant part of the population have not registered into the National Identity Database (NIDB).
They attributed the delay in registration to some challenges, which the Federal Government has looked into and has made efforts to alleviate.
BizWatch Nigeria had reported that some hitches in the system used by the agency had slowed that the verification process of the NIN.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, urged all citizens and legal residents to complete the process before the end of the year 2021.
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Th statement read in part, “As of October 30, 2021, there were over 9,500 enrolment systems and over 8,000 NIN enrolment centres within and outside the country- this has significantly eased the NIN enrolment process and subsequent linkage of NIN to SIM.
“The NIN-SIM verification process is supporting the Government’s drive to develop Nigeria’s digital economy, strengthen our ability to protect our cyberspace and support the security agencies.”