BREAKING: FG Extends NIN-SIM Linkage By 8 Weeks

The federal government has extended the linkage of the national identity number with SIM cards by eight weeks.

This is coming after the NIMC announced that the deadline will be on Feb 9. The need to extend it came up due to the many irregularities encountered in enrolling for NIN By Nigerians.

This development may have given credence to the position of the former Second National Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and human rights lawyer, Mr Monday Ubani, who had argued that the two weeks ultimatum given for the SIM registration is “unreasonably too short and unreasonable and impracticable in view of the large population of Nigerians and the slow rate of registration by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).”

Ubani also submitted that “in view of the covid-19 pandemic and the rising cases in Nigeria presently, the two weeks deadline given to the Applicant and over 200 million Nigerians to register their SIM Cards with NIN, will lead to a rush, thereby resulting to clustering of the Applicant and other Nigerian citizens in a NIN registration centre, subjecting him to the possibility of easily contracting the covid-19 virus, and such will amount to a violation of his fundamental right to life as protected by section 33(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).”