The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Tuesday said over 47 million Nigerians have registered for the National Identity Numbers (NINs). NCC Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, who disclosed this via a statement, said the figures represented the statistics collected by telecommunication mobile operators.
Adinde is optimistic that many more Nigerians would be linked up before the deadline for the exercise in February. “So far a total of 47.8 million NINs have been collected by the mobile operators. At an average of 3 to 4 SIMs per subscriber, this means many millions will be linked up before the deadline in February 2021,” the statement partly read.
“At the end of a review meeting on 18th January 2021, the Technical Implementation Committee under the Ministerial Task Force has reported significant progress in the ongoing NIN-SIM linkage exercise.” Reacting to the report, the NCC spokesman said the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, expressed satisfaction with this commendable achievement.
He was said to have expressed the Federal Government’s appreciation for “the commitment demonstrated by all stakeholders and citizens and urged them to submit their NINs before 9th February 2021 deadline.