The Federal Government on Tuesday announced that a total of 47.8 million Nigerians have obtained their National Identity Numbers (NIN).
The report follows today’s January 19 deadline given by the Federal Government that any mobile number not linked to a NIN should be block.
The government, while expressing hopes that more NINs would be collected before the February 9, 2021 deadline, warned telephone subscribers to protect their Subscriber Identification Modules and their National Identity Numbers as it would now use the NIN to trace people for either good or bad reasons.
This was contained in statement issued in Abuja by the Director Public, Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde, signed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami.
Pantami reminded Nigerians to secure and protect their NINs, urging subscribers to desist from selling their NINs or allowing others to use their NINs for registration.
“For any action committed with the SIM good or bad it will be officially traced and attached to the NIN owner,” the minister warned.
The statement further stated that at the end of a review meeting on January 18, 2021, the Technical Implementation Committee under the Ministerial Task Force reported significant progress in the ongoing NIN-SIM linkage exercise.
“So far a total of 47.8 million NINs have been collected by the mobile operators. At an average of three to four SIMs per subscriber, this means many millions will be linked up before the deadline in February 2021,” the NCC stated.