The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has shut down its office in the Alausa area of Lagos State citing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
This action was taken following the invasion of a massive crowd at the NIMC office after the Federal Government recently gave Nigerians a two-week ultimatum for the registration and linking of National Identity Number (NIN) to mobile numbers, otherwise risk their SIM cards being blocked.
The federal government, through the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, compelled all telecommunications operators in the country to block all Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) without National Identification Numbers (NIN) before or on December 31, 2020.
The mammoth crowd that took over the NIMC Alausa office came even as Nigeria has begun battling a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photos from the scene shared on social media showed that those who visited the NIMC office flouted the social distancing COVID19 protocol.
See photos from the scene below:
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives had asked the NCC to extend the two-week ultimatum to ten weeks, however, the Commission is yet to make a public reversal of its notice.
Since the NCC directive to link all SIM cards to a valid NIN, Nigerians have expressed displeasure over the development, calling on the government to look for ways to harmonize, the NIN, BVN, Driver’s licence and PassPort number to a single number.
