By Yahaya Umar
National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, has denied reports that its servers have been suffering downtimes as Nigerians besieged telecom operators shops for the verification of their National Identification Number, NIN.
The Commission stated this in a statement released on Thursday by its Head of Corporate Communications, Kayode Adegoke, adding that over 10,000 enrollment centers across the country and in Diaspora are actively serving Nigerians.
The rush for NIN verification is on the back of the September 15 final deadline for the linking of all SIMs to NIN as recently announced by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.
On Wednesday, reports suggested that telecom operators were having serious challenges in verifying subscribers’ NIN on NIMC servers due to repeated downtime.
This was said to have been a recurring issue and a major stumbling block to the completion of the entire process.
Contrary to the reports, NIMC said there has not been any issue on its system, adding that services are being rendered seamlessly.
 “NIMC wishes to inform the general public that National Identification Number, NIN, enrolment, verification and authentication, modification of data, and other services are going on seamlessly to meet the needs of Nigeria for the NIN-SIM linkage deadline.
“The Commission wishes to reiterate that all its over Ten Thousand NIN enrolment centers across the country and in the diaspora are open for NIN enrolment. Nigerians and legal residents can visit any of the centers to enroll and be issued the NIN. This assurance is given in light of the September 14, 2024 deadline for the NIN-SIM linkage”, the Commission said.
NIMC added that Nigerians and legal residents, who want to modify their NIN data can also do so through its self-service portal.
Furthermore, the Commission reaffirmed its commitment to Zero tolerance for all forms of extortion and unethical practices, insisting that NIN enrolment is free.
On Wednesday, August 28, the NCC announced September 14, 2024, as the final deadline for Nigerians for the ongoing SIM-NIN linkage exercise.
According to the telecom regulator, to date, over 153 million SIMs have been successfully linked to a NIN, reflecting an impressive compliance rate of 96%, a substantial increase from 69.7% in January 2024.
This, however, showed there are still millions of lines yet to be linked with NIN.
As of March 2024, data from the NCC shows that there were over 219 million active lines across the mobile networks of MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile
