April 15, 2021

Federal government has approved the activation of New SIM Registration with Mandatory NIN in line with the Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration.

The Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy disclosed this on Thursday  in a statement signed by Femi Ademiluyi, a technical aide to Minister, Isa Pantami.

According to the statement, the implementation of the Policy will commence on Monday, 19th of April 2021 and the issuance of New SIMs and other suspended activities will resume on the same date, as long as verification is done and the guidelines are fully adhered to.

The Minister has also directed the Nigeria  Communications Commission,  NCC and the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, to ensure that the provisions of the Policy are strictly followed by all operators and subscribers.

The government suspended the activity in December 2020 as it embarked on an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database.

The Communications Ministry said at the time that the audit exercise was important in order to verify and ensure compliance by Mobile Network Operators with set quality standards and requirements of SIM Card Registration.

The resumption of new SIM cards issuance comes as the country is set to implement a Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration.

The statement noted that significant progress has been made in the NIN registration process across the country, but that the Federal Government is committed to supporting all Nigerians and legal residents to obtain a NIN.

“The biometric verification process has been slower than anticipated, owing largely to the non-adherence of many previous SIM biometric capture processes to the NIMC standards. The Revised Policy will ensure that operators conform to the required standards for biometric capture”.

“The Guidelines in the Policy have been painstakingly developed and while they are thorough, it should be noted that they have been developed that way in National interest since the SIM is essentially a national resource.

Citizens and legal residents are encouraged to bear with the government as the process has been developed in the best interest of the country.

“Dr Pantami wishes to thank Nigerians for their patience and compliance with the Federal Government’s directive on the NIN-SIM registration exercise.

“He reiterated government’s commitment to continually taking decisions aimed at easing the pains of the citizens with regard to issues related to NIN and SIM registration.