NIMC: Telcos Submit 43 Million NINs For Verification

Telecommunication operators across the country have submitted about 43 million National Identification Numbers (NIN) to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for verification, in order to have them registered with their respective Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs).

The operators also said they won’t block SIMs with unlinked submitted NINs as the deadline for the integration of NIN with SIM ends today, January 19, 2021.

The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo disclosed this on Tuesday.

Speaking on behalf of the firms, Adebayo said the NINs were sent to NIMC for verification in order to ensure that the numbers were harmonised with their respective SIMs.

He said, “I don’t have the number of SIM cards that have been linked but at the last count, NIMC told us that they have about 43 million Nigerians who have NINs.

“So, we will be safe to assume that a large percentage of these citizens have delivered their NINs to the operators by way of dialling the USSD access code and/or visiting the operators’ websites and uploading their NINs on the websites.”

He added, “And by extension, I will be right to say that operators have delivered those NINs to NIMC. Now the second part of it, which is not in our control, is how many of these numbers uploaded by the operators and forwarded to NIMC have been harmonised?

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“How many of them have been verified? That is not in our control, but as an industry, the large numbers we received from subscribers have since been delivered to NIMC.”

Adebayo, however, said it was now the call of the commission to educate the public on the number of NINs that had been interrogated and cleared for harmonisation with SIMs.

“It is now for NIMC to confirm to the public whether those numbers have been verified, but as many subscribers who had sent their NINs to us, we have delivered same to NIMC.”

Speaking on whether operators had met with the government as regards the deadlines for the registration of SIMs with valid NINs, he said the ministerial committee had not met on the matter in the last one week.

Adebayo said, “Well, not in the last one week. I am also on the ministerial steering committee representing the operators, while some of the operators and CEOs of telecommunications firms are also there.

“We haven’t had such meetings in the last week and there is none that I’m aware of. We are hoping that one will be called soon, especially now that we are nearing the deadline.”