The National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers has called on the Nigerian Communications Commission to shift the deadline for NIN-SIM from September 14 to September 30, 2021.
The National President, Mr Deolu Ogunbanjo, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday, said that the association was seeking an extension because of some challenges being encountered on the platform made available by the NIMC.
According to NAN, NCC set a September 14, 2024 deadline, for all mobile customers to link their SIMs to their NINs.
NCC reiterated that the linkage of NIN with the SIM was important in deepening digital security and in the fight against fraud and cybercrime.
Ogunbanjo said this was because NIMC needed the two-week extension to upscale the capacity of its portal and that even the telecom operators at customer centres often undergo distress in trying to upload to the NIMC portal .
He said this inability to upload to the NIMC portal frustrated the process and caused the delay.
“I visited the customer service centres of Airtel and MTN. I saw how they struggled to upload data on NIMC portal.
“The congestion was glaring with slow rates of upload that annoyed much.
“It was clear that the interface provided by NIMC was not designed to handle the increase in uploads, thereby making life unnecessarily stressful for the telecom companies and end users alike.
“I am therefore appealing to the NCC to grant an extension up till Sept. 30, to enable the NIMC further to improve its portal capacity,” the chairman said.
This, he explained, is to help alleviate the current stress and ensure that the process is as seamless as possible for all stakeholders.
