BREAKING: FG Extends Deadline For NIN-SIM Card Linkage By Three Months
The Nigerian government has extended the deadline for the continuing integration of the national identification number (NIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM) to March 31, 2022.
Meanwhile, during the National Identity Number-Subscriber Identity Module data verification, a total of 63.97 million lines were disconnected in a year.
The Nigerian Communications Commissions provided the data for this.
According to NCC data, the total number of connected lines in the country declined by 21.79 percent from October 2020 to 229,582,206 in October this year.
The largest number of connected lines (328,114,538) and lowest number (328,114,538) were recorded in August 2021 and September 2021, respectively (229,467,077).
The number of active lines decreased by 7.69% from 207,578,237 in October 2020 to 191,618,839 in October 2021. (15,959,398).
According to the FCC, as of October 2021, 37,963,367 linked lines were idle, down from 85,976,361 the previous month.
Since the Nigerian government began associating NIN with SIM cards, telecommunication providers in the country have been losing subscribers.
“Mobile subscribers declined by 7.6 million to 68.9 million, impacted by the regulatory restrictions on new SIM sales and activations,” MTN Nigeria Communications Plc had said in its half-year financial statements.
According to the company, it is actively in support of the government’s NIN enrolment programme.
Airtel, in its quarterly financial statements, had said, “New customer acquisitions were barred until significant progress had been made on linking the active customer base with verified NINs.
“Natural churn in the customer base led to a loss of two million active mobile customers in Nigeria in the first quarter of the year (following on from 2.5 million customer loss in the final quarter of the year to March 31, 2021).”
In December 2020, the Nigerian Government banned the sale and registration of new SIM cards and gave a 30-day deadline for people to link their NIN with their SIM cards. The Nigerian government later extended the exercise to the end of 2021.
When the government banned the sale and registration of SIM cards, the total number of connected lines was 300,042,650, and the total number of active lines was 204,228,678.
According to the government, the SIM-NIN policy is necessary to strengthen security in the country and trace suspects.
