The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is currently facing a network delay which has slowed down the generation of National Identity Numbers even as the deadline for customers to link their SIM to their NINs draws closer.
It was learnt that while newly registered customers usually obtained their NIN within a day or two in the past, some now have to wait for as long as a week in order to generate their NIN.
Customers without NINs or those who have failed to link their NIN to their telephone lines will not be barred from using their telephone lines from October 31, 2021.
A top source at NIMC said, “You can still register for the NIN as a new customer but you cannot generate NIN as quickly as you could in the past. This is because of the rush for registration and the pressure on our system.”
Explaining how the process of registration works, the official added, “When you complete your registration, the information is stored at the back end.
“Then it goes through a process known as deduplication. The deduplication will ensure that your biometric data is not the same as any other person’s own.
“If you are changing your name or editing your data like age, then you have to pay. But the process of updating your data or even registering now takes as much as a week. In fact, my wife has not been able to obtain her passport for the last three weeks because the data has not been dropped for immigration to pick.
“All these are happening because of the rush on the system. It is overwhelming and some expatriates have been coming to look at it but the problem is funding.”
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Efforts to get NIMC spokesperson, Kayode Adegoke, were unsuccessful, as he neither picked his calls nor replied to the text sent to him by our correspondent.
Meanwhile, indications have emerged that millions of subscribers may be at risk of disenfranchisement three days to the October 31 deadline set by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for subscribers to link their Subscriber Identity Module to their National Identity Numbers.
According to a source in the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, only about 70 million SIMs have been verified to their respective NIN.
The source said the verification exercise was being slowed down by the National Identity Management Commission.