The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, says Nigerians without a National Identification Number (NIN) risk 14 years imprisonment.
He said this at the weekly Presidential Media briefing organized by the Presidential Communication Media Team in Abuja, yesterday.
According to him, 51 million Nigerians have enrolled for the National Identification Number as of March 31, 2021.
While encouraging Nigerians to enrol for NIN, the minister warned that “those yet to obtain the NIN risk seven or 14 years imprisonment” as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution.
He explained that while obtaining a SIM card may be optional, NIN is mandatory, noting that a lot of transactions in the country are not supposed to be carried out without NIN.
He added, “Based on the requirement by law each and every citizen and legal resident must obtain his/her National Identification Number, which is being coordinated by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). It’s a requirement by law but many citizens ignore it.
“What we achieved in the area of enrolment from the time Mr President has directed me to supervise NIMC till date is unprecedented and we would continue to ensure that in the next few years we have an almost a complete data base of all our citizens in the country.
“No country will be successful in education, health, budget planning or national planning without data base of its citizens in place.
“What I inherited in the database was less than 20 per cent of our population. But we want to ensure that before we leave office we would look at the database and be proud of our country.”
The Federal Government also said that there was no plan to lift the ban on new Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) registration any time soon, for security reasons, disclosing that SIM registrations carried out in the past had been compromised.
Pantami said, “The ban on new SIMs remains in place for security reasons. We know this ban is painful but very necessary. In the past, SIM registration processes were compromised, most of the SIMs were improperly registered, hence we have most of the SIMs used to commit crimes in the country. So, what we are doing now is matching all the SIMs with NINs; this has become necessary for security purposes”.
“The ban may affect our economy, but when addressing the issue of security, the economy takes back stage.
“People used the biometrics of one person to register about 100 SIMs after people are given money; this is even as some SIMs were improperly registered.
“This is one of the most difficult decisions I have taken as a minister. It is a very painful decision, but we had to take it”.
Pantami put the number of SIM card subscribers linked to NINs at over 150million, adding, however, that enrollment of NINs is 51million as at March 31.
He explained that while 150million have completed registration, the remainder have problems of improper registration.
He warned that those yet to obtain their NINs risk imprisonment from seven to 14 years as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution.
According to him, while obtaining a SIM card may be optional, a NIN is mandatory, citing Section 27 of the NIMC Act of 2007, and noting that it is a criminal offense in Nigeria to carry out business activities without first acquiring a NIN number.
‘The NIMC Act clause 27 states that you need the NIN number for opening bank account, for insurance, land transactions , voters registration, drivers licenses.