NIN SIM Registration: Court Fixes January 8 To Hear Suit Against FG

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has fixed February 8 for the hearing of the suit filed against the Federal Government over the compulsory linking of SIMs with valid National Identification Number (NIN).

A former vice-president of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Monday Ubani, instituted the suit against the Federal Government, the Attorney General of the Federation, Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.

Ubani is asking the court to grant an order directing the respondents to extend the deadline for SIM-NIN linkage for at least one year as the court may consider reasonable.

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The high court fixed the case for hearing and judgment for Monday.

Ubani said: “The truth of the matter is this: if between 2012 and now, the country is only able to register about 56 million Nigerians, one is clearly at a loss on how the same country will perform the magic of registering about 70 million subscribers within four months, which is between January and April 2021.”

Ubani kicked against the crowded and chaotic scenes at most NIMC registration centres in the country when the nation is battling a spike in COVID-19 cases.

He described the development for a lack of wisdom in insisting on the “earlier or later deadline as the situation on the ground depicts flagrant non-adherence to the simple social distancing protocols established by the National Taskforce on COVID-19 pandemic, thereby endangering lives”.