Late last year, the NCC ordered the suspension of the registration of new SIM cards by all Mobile Network Operators in the country. The commission also required mobile network subscribers to provide their NIN to update SIM registration records before December 30th, 2020.
On January 7th, employees of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) [ the commission in charge of issuing NIN ] embarked on a nationwide strike thereby putting a halt to the already uncoordinated but mandatory registration of National Identity Numbers (NIN) If you are one of the 21 million subscribers who are yet to.
A statement released by the commission earlier this month explained that the strike was due to unpaid salaries and the Covid-prone working environment of the employees. Earlier this month, NIMC said unless they were provided with essential COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) their staff wasn’t allowed to register any subscribers.
The commission noted that some of their staff members got exposed to COVID-19 and the federal government didn’t take adequate measures to stop the spread of the virus.
According to a new report by TechCabal, The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced that telecommunication companies and some private companies in Nigeria are now licensed to register and issue NIN to subscribers.
The Director-General of the commission, Aliyu Aziz revealed recently that the development is to reduce the number of people clustering at different NIMC centers around the country for registration, “We have licensed private and public sector organizations including telcos (sic) so as to create more centers” Aziz said.
New registration centers will be opened and managed by network operators and some private companies that are yet to be known.