NIN Wahala : Confusion as Nigerians storm NIMC centres, shun COVID-19 rules

There was confusion at the National Identity Management Commission offices across the country on Monday as Nigerians thronged registration centres to obtain their national identity numbers.

Punch correspondents who monitored registration centres in  Lagos, Plateau, Kano and Gombe states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, observed that people struggling to register disregarded COVID-19 preventive measures with many of them pushing one another.

The confusion at the NIMC offices on Monday heightened the fear of a further spread of  COVID-19  as cases rose to 78,434 on Sunday night, while the number of people that had died of the virus increased to 1,221.

Recall that the Federal Government had last week ordered telecommunications companies to deactivate telephone lines of subscribers who failed to link their phones to their NIN within two weeks.

As of October, the total number of mobile network connections was 207.58 million, but currently only 43 million Nigerians have NIN, thus 164 million telephone users are at the risk of being deactivated on December 31.

But on Monday evening, the Federal Government bowed to pressure by extending the deadline to January 19, 2021 for subscribers with NIN and February 9 for those without NIN.

– Punch