The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in its latest report, says that from March 31st – April 23rd 2022, the commission has issued 3.6 million fresh National Identification Numbers (NINs) to registrants.
Driving the news
Since March 31 2022 when the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, took action against defaulters of the NIN-SIM exercise, the number of fresh registrants of NINs has increased from 77.1 million to 80.7 million.
In case you missed it
- The federal government directed mobile telecoms operating in Nigeria to bar unlinked NIN SIM cards from making outgoing calls after a lengthy period of encouraging citizens to complete the process.
- Telecoms barred over 75 million mobile users in Nigeria from making outgoing calls out of Nigeria’s 198 million phone connections.
By the numbers
Of the 80.7 million NINs issued so far, 56% or 45.4 million were issued to men, while 44% or 35.3 million were given to women. Also, Lagos State leads the top three states with the highest number of registrants with 9.9 million people, followed by Kano State with 6.7 million and Kaduna State rounding up the top three with 4.7 million.
State of play
Mobile telecoms operating in Nigeria would need a long period to recover from the losses recorded due to the multiple policies by the federal government on their customers from 2021 till date. These policies include the ban on SIM card sales in 2021, barring of outgoing calls on unlinked SIM cards and many more.