By Audrey Lotechukwu
TUE 02 FEB, 2021-theGBJournal- Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Monday announced the extension of the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise by 8 weeks, with a new deadline of April 6, 2021.
The Minister said the extension is to give Nigerians and legal residents more time to integrate their NIN with the SIM.
The decision to extend the deadline was taken during a meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration which held Monday.
The extension will come as a huge relief to millions of Nigerians who had fallen prey to hordes of government officials and agents who exploited the inevitable rush to cash in, in some cases charging illegally as much as N10, 000 to register a subscriber.
More so, critics condemned the timing of the deadline given by the National Identity Commission (NIMC) and the Nigerian Communication Commission as insensitive to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
To date, a total of 56.18 million NINs have been collected by the mobile network operators, according to various official reports.
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