By DENNIS EREZI

Nigeria government said it has licensed 173 centres and 30 state government institutions to conduct the enrollment of the National Identity Number (NIN) across the country.

“The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), has approved the licensing of 173 Agents and 30 State Governments/Public Sector Institutions to conduct enrolment of all persons including legal residents into the National Identity Database (NIDB) on behalf of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC),” National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said on its website on Wednesday.

“Pursuant to the above, find the list of all the successful firms who satisfied all the evaluation criteria as stated in the Advert for the Expression of Interest (EOI) of each of the respective categories in full.”

“The Commission congratulates all those who have been cleared to conduct enrollment of all persons on behalf of NIMC for data capture services.”

All registered persons can retrieve their NIN by dialing *346# on their registered phone number for all the major networks.

NIMC’s statement comes a day after the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) gave a two-week ultimatum to telecom service providers to block phone numbers without NIN.

The directive has since sparked an outrage amongst Nigerians who argue that government agencies can retrieve their information on other data platform to update their sim card registration.

Currently, Nigeria has multiple citizen’s collection data platforms – the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN), National Identification Numbers (NIN), passport, driver’s license, SIM card registration and voters’ card all having the same information of individuals.

The Nigerian government has said telecom service providers who fail to block sim cards unregistered with NIN after the two weeks risk withdrawal of their operational license.

“The submission of NIN by subscribers to take place within two weeks (from today December 16, 2020 and end by 30 December, 2020),” NCC spokesperson Ike Adinde said in a statement.

“After the deadline, ALL SIMs without NINs are to be blocked from the networks.

“Violations of this directive will be met by stiff sanctions, including the possibility of withdrawal of operating license.” (The Guardian)