According to the Federal Government, the digital token consisting of 16 alphabets and numbers will be accepted for third-party verification, instead of the 11-digit NIN.

However, the President, NATS, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said the move was currently uncalled for, and shouldn’t be implemented without proper consultation with stakeholders.

He said, “Why can’t the FG engage stakeholders before coming up with this plan? It is a serious policy and they didn’t even engage stakeholders. Why can’t we do that? Until they discuss with all relevant stakeholders, and we look at the merits and demerits; they can’t impose this on us. I do not know why the FG is always rushing things on its citizens, remember when they were also going to start the SIM-NIN linkage, it was announced in a hurry too. Why is this government rushing its citizens without proper enlightenment? Nobody knows what this V-NIN is all about, they are coming up with it this month and they want to implement it next month. They must start educating the citizenry first. We are not sure if the Federal Government doesn’t have an agenda with all these things. This is because we now have about five or six different means of national identification.”

The Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde disclosed this in a statement released this morning February 2. According to the statement, Nigerians have till April 6 to link their SIMs with their NIN.

‘The statement in part reads “The ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise has been extended by 8 weeks, with a new deadline of April 6, 2021. This message was conveyed by the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) during the meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration held on February 1, 2021. Dr Pantami stated that the extension is to give Nigerians and legal residents more time to integrate their NIN with the SIM.”