The Nigerian government has ordered telecommunication companies to bar calls from phone numbers that are yet to be linked to their National Identity Numbers (NIN) from Monday, April 4.
Ikechukwu Adinde, spokesperson of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) made this known in a statement on Monday.
According to the statement, subscribers who are yet to link their phone numbers to their NINs will not be allowed to make calls until the linkage is done.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the implementation of the Policy with effect from April 4, 2022.
“Outgoing calls will subsequently be barred for telephone lines that have not complied with the NIN-SIM linkage Policy from the 4th of April, 2022. Subscribers of such lines are hereby advised to link their SIMs to their NINs before the Telcos can lift the restriction on their lines,” the statement added.
So far, over 125 million SIMs have had their NINs submitted for immediate linkage, verification and authentication while over 78 million NINs have been generated.
The directive is coming after the government extended the deadline for the 10th time on March 31.
The compulsory linkage began in December 2020 for two weeks when the government directed telecommunication companies to block calls from unregistered/unlinked NINs.
The policy was expected to help the authorities in fighting bandits and terrorists who kidnap and kill innocent people daily.
