National Identity Management Commission, on Tuesday, threatened that Nigerians yet to register and get their National Identity Numbers should be ready to bear the consequences.
NIMC, which stated this on Tuesday, tweeted, “By order of the Federal Government, today is given as the last chance to register your NIMC or face the wrath of what comes next.”
Late last year, Federal Government had declared that after December 30, 2020, all SIMs not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked.
FG later extended the December 30, 2020 deadline following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020, to January 19, 2021.
The government also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020, to February 9, 2021, but many organisations have called for a further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process due to the large crowds who had yet to have their NINs.
It was learnt that about 43 million National Identity Numbers had been submitted by telecommunication companies to NIMC for verification in order to have them registered with their respective Subscriber Identification Modules.
In 2019, Nigeria Immigration Service had made NIN a prerequisite for obtaining passports while recently, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and the National Examinations Council made it compulsory for intending candidates.
As a result of this, crowds of people have continued to gather at the NIMC offices across the country for the NIM registration.