NIN: FG To Generate N3.380 billion From Over 160 Million Mobile Connections

Nigerians have expressed outrage over Federal Government’s directive to telecommunication operators to block all Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards not registered with the National Identity Numbers (NIN) after two weeks.

The directive issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), an agency under the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, stated that after December 30, any unregistered SIM would be blocked.

Daily Sun investigations reveal that the Federal Government would rake in about N3,380 billion from the over 169 million mobile connections as N20 will be charged for each Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) message to get a NIN from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) data base.

Apparently to ease subscribers’ pain, the Federal Government has licensed 173 centres and 30 state government institutions to conduct enrolment across Nigeria.

This was disclosed on the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) website, yesterday.

However, House of Representatives has urged NCC to extend the deadline for GSM subscribers by 10 weeks.

This followed the adoption of a motion by the Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, on the need for NCC to give GSM subscribers reasonable time to make available their NIN to their respective service providers.

“As laudable as the idea behind the policy may seem, the timing is very wrong because Nigerians have not been properly sensitised, as only a few educated persons who bother to read the dailies might have heard about this instructions.

“Therefore, trying to enforce this policy in a period where most Nigerians are gearing up for Christmas festivities may lead to stampede in the process of rushing to get registered which could lead to unnecessary death and injuries.

“If the NCC is allowed to carry out this directives, it will bring about untold hardship as millions of subscribers will be disconnected this yuletide period which could spell disaster in an already volatile nation like ours.”

Besides, Elumelu, while calling for intervention of the House contended that “if the NCC is not urgently called to halt itsr plans, there may be unnecessary panic which may lead to exploitation of vulnerable Nigerian thereby causing more pains in an already pathetic situation hence the need to urgently wade into this impending crisis.”

The lawmakers also pointed out the health hazards involved, saying despite warnings that there may be a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is giving a directive at short notice that would mean gathering of crowds of people at registration centres.

Daily Sun