The Federal Government has extended the deadline for linking Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM cards) with National Identification Number (NIN) by another four weeks.
This was announced by the spokesperson of the National Identity Management Commission, Kayode Adegoke in a statement on Friday.
Initial deadline for the linking of SIM cards to NIN was 6 April.
It has now been extended till 6 May.
This marks the third time the Federal Government extended the dealine for the linking of SIM cards to NIN.
The Federal Government had given a two week notice for compliance when the policy was first announced on 15 December, threatening to block phone lines.
It extended by three weeks the 30 December 2020, deadline following widespread opposition.
At the expiration of the deadline on 19 January, government gave another till 9 February.
Before the expiration of the new deadline, government caved to calls from many quarters to either extend the deadline or suspend the policy.
On 2 February, it shifted the deadline till 6 April, which has also now been shifted,
The decision to postpone compliance was reached at the meeting of the Ministerial Task Force on NIN-SIM data Linkage.
The statement read in part, “The meeting took place on Thursday, April 1, 2021, and approval was given to extend the period of the NIN-SIM linkage to the 6th of May, 2021.
“The request for the extension was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari and he endorsed it.”
The meeting which was chaired by Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, had in attendance managing directors of MTN, Airtel, EMTS (9Mobile), NTEL, Spectranet and SMILE, as well as the chief operating officer of Glo.
Stakeholders from NIMC, Nigerian Communications Commission, National Information Technology Development Agency among others were also present.
