FG Extends NIN-SIM Linkage By Eight Weeks

The Federal Government has announced on Tuesday, 2nd of February that the ongoing National Identification Number and Subscriber Identity Module integration exercise has been extended by eight weeks.

The new deadline is now April 6, 2021.

The information for the extension was conveyed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami.

Pantami conveyed the message during the meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration which held on Monday, 1st of February, 2021.

Recall that on the 15th of December, 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.

It later extended the December 30, 2020 deadline following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020 to January 19, 2021.

It also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020 to February 9, 2021, however many organisations had called for further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process.