The Federal Government has extended the deadline for the linkage of the National Identification Number (NIN) to their Subscriber Module Identity (SIM) cards to 30 June.

This was disclosed by Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, in a statement jointly signed by Ikechukwu Adinde, Director, Public Affairs of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); and Kayode Adegoke, Head, Corporate Communications of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), on Tuesday.

The current deadline for the linkage is scheduled for 6 May.

But the statement noted that the decision to further extend the deadline was taken at a virtual meeting attended by Pantami, as well as the Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Adeolu Akande; the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of NCC, Umar Dambatta; and the Director-General/CEO of NIMC, Aliyu Azeez.

According to the minister, who is currently embattled following the revelation of his past comments supporting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, 54 million SIM cards have been linked to the subscribers’ NIN.

“The postponement of the deadline was also based on the request by stakeholders for an extension till 30th of June in order to make it easier for all citizens and legal residents to register.

“Significant progress has been made in the NIN-SIM verification process. For example, almost 54 Million people have obtained their NIN and this can translate to up to 190 million mobile numbers, since empirical evidence suggests that each unique NIN maps to 3 to 4 phone lines,” the statement partly read.

On December 15, 2020, the Federal Government declared that after December 30, 2020, all SIMs that were not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked.

However, the exercise has been extended four times following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and call for further time for registration