SIM-NIN: If Your Line Has Been Barred by FG, Respite Might Be Coming Your Way

• The federal government will soon be dragged to court by some Nigerians if it refuses to reverse the ban on lines
• Specifically, telecommunication subscribers under the aegis of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers will drag the FG in May
• Recall that about 72.77 million active telecom subscribers were barred from making calls on their SIMs

The federal government will be dragged to court if it failed to reverse the bans on SIM cards that have been linked to the National Identification Number.

The threat was issued by telecommunication subscribers under the aegis of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers.

This will be done in a bid to temporarily suspend the government’s barring of subscribers’ outgoing calls.

Punch Newspaper reports that the president of the association, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, disclosed that NATCOM was set to take the government to court by May if it fails to temporarily lift the ban.

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According to him, the association will be joined in a suit already filed by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project against the Federal Government on the NIN-SIM policy implementation.

He said:

“We have said that if the Federal Government does not lift the ban, we would go to court. But SERAP said it had filed a document in the court. So, we are giving the government until the end of the month.

“NATCOM is saying that by end of the month, we will go to court. We are going to court to ensure the government unbans the lines and extends the deadline. SERAP has made the first move already, we would be joined in the suit.

“After the expiration of our deadline for the government to reconsider its decision, we would formally go to court, along with SERAP. By the first week in May, we are joining SERAP in the court.”

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Subscribers reject Pantami’s introduction of digital tokens to replace NIN slips

Telecommunication users under the auspices of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATS) have shot down the move by the Nigerian government of introducing digital suites to replace the National Identity Number (NIN) slips by January 2022.

The digital token is made up of 16 letters and numbers that will be accepted for third-party verification, rather than the 11 digit NIN.

The plan has generated serious debate and doubts from Nigerians who lamented the hassles they went through to obtain the 11 digit NIN.

According to a Punch account, the President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers in Nigeria (NATS), Adeolu Ogunbanjo, stated that the move is unwarranted and cannot be carried without proper dialogue.

Plans already underway

Legit.ng reported that the government of Nigeria says that it would switch the National Identity Number (NIN) for a suite of digital Tokens which will allow Nigerians to have control over their verification processes during official or formal transactions across the country.

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Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy said this at a workshop on the National Identification Number (NIN) Tokenisation Solution by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) recently in Abuja.

According to the federal government, the strategy is being carried out in order to ensure privacy and protection of individuals during verification transactions and to reduce redundancies during retrieval, usage, transfer and storage of the NIN.

Source: Legit.ng