Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said it has successfully completed the federal government’s policy linking all phone numbers to a National Identification.
Aminu Maida, executive vice-chairman, NCC, stated this at the 2024 Annual Corporate Governance Conference held in Lagos on Thursday.
Maida, while acknowledging the challenges faced by Nigerians during the process, emphasised the significance of the concluded NIN-SIM linkage initiative, stating that the federal government’s policy will help curb crime and insecurity in the country.
According to him, “We have recently concluded the implementation of the federal government’s 2020 policy of linking every phone number to a NIN.
“Though it was a bit painful for Nigerians, I think we also need to appreciate what this does for us.
“Today, there is no phone number that we cannot associate with a verified NIN. Not just a number, but a number that has been verified.”
Few months ago, NCC announced September 14, 2024 as the final deadline for Nigerians for the ongoing SIM-NIN linkage exercise.
According to the telecom regulator, as at August 2024, over 153 million SIMs were successfully linked to NIN, reflecting an impressive compliance rate of 96%, a substantial increase from 69.7% in January 2024.
This, however, showed there were still millions of lines yet to be linked with NIN. As of March 2024, data from the NCC shows that there were 219 million active lines across the mobile networks of MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile.
Announcing the final deadline in a statement signed by Reuben Muoka, director of Public Affairs, NCC said the target is to achieve 100% compliance by the said date. This means that all lines not linked by September 14 would be blocked by the network operators.
Beyond linking, all the NINs submitted, by the subscribers must have been verified, which is where many telecom consumers had issues.
According to the telecom operators, irregularities in registered data have been a major issue preventing the verification of NINs of millions of customers.
