We’ve so far registered 51m for NIN, 189m SIM cards – Minister

The Federal Government says it has so far enrolled 51million citizens for the National Identification Number (NIN) as at March 31, 2021.

Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, made this known at the weekly Presidential Media briefing organized by the Presidential Communication Media Team in Abuja on Thursday.

He also revealed that about 189 million subscribers of the Identification Module (SIM) had been registered in the country.

According to the minister, only 150million out of the 189million have successfully completed their registration while the remaining have problems of improper registration.

Pantami reminded all citizens to enroll for the NIN, warning that those yet to obtain the NIN risk seven or 14 years imprisonment as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution.

“Based on the requirement by law each and every citizen and legal resident must obtain his/her National Identification Number (NIN), which is being coordinated by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).  It’s a requirement by law but many citizens ignore it.

“What we achieved in the area of enrolment from the time Mr President has directed me to supervise NIMC  till date is unprecedented and we would continue to ensure that in the next few years we have an almost a complete  data base of all our citizens in the country.

“No country will be successful in education, health, budget planning or national planning without data base of its citizens in place.

“What I inherited in the data base was less than 20 per cent of our population. But we want to ensure that before we leave office we would look at the data base and be proud of our country,’’ he said.

According to him, while obtaining a SIM card maybe optional, NIN is mandatory, noting that a lot of transactions in the country are not supposed to be carried out without NIN.