Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project SERAP, has urged the President, Muhammadu Buhari, to instruct the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, and Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission NMIC, Mr Aliyu Abubakar to stop the push for registration of Nigerians for National Identity Number NIN, and withdraw the threat to block SIM cards.
SERAP in a statement explained that the data being sought already exist in several platforms, including the Bank Verification Numbers, driver’s license, international passport, and voters’ card.
The organization also urged president Buhari to instruct Mr Pantami and Mr Abubakar to take concrete measures to promptly ensure that the NIMC is able to faithfully and effectively discharge its statutory functions to harmonize and integrate existing identification databases in government agencies into the National Identity Database, and to use the information to update SIM card registration.
The Federal Government had threatened that SIM cards not linked to NIN by 30 December, 2020 would be blocked, and that telecom service providers that failed to block phone numbers without NIN would have their operating licenses withdrawn.