March 14, 2022/CSL Research

Based on a Punch news report, the telecoms subscribers under the aegis of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATS) have solicited for a suspension of the 31 March 2022 deadline given by the regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for compliance with the government’s directive on the NIN-SIM integration exercise. Given the inadequate capacity of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to facilitate a faster registration, the pace of NIN registration has been slow, affecting the integration of NIN to SIMs. Meanwhile, it was reported in February 2022 that the government’s ICT service provider, Galaxy Backbone, on which the NIMC’s server is hosted had to go through routine maintenance, leading to downtime in the NIN verification process.

We recall that on 15 December 2020, the NCC mandated all mobile subscribers to submit their National Identification Number (NIN) to update their SIM card registration, putting the initial deadline at 30 December 2020. Given the risk of disconnection for most subscribers, as many Nigerians had not enrolled for NIN, the regulator extended the deadline on several occasions from January 2021 to February, June, July, October, December 2021 and finally, March 2022. Even as things stand, especially with the recent breakdown in NIMC service provision, it is justifiable for the regulator to extend the deadline as a significant part of the populace is still at the risk of disconnection. As of December 2021, about 71 million Nigerians had enrolled for NIN. While no data on the registered subscribers is available as of writing, certainly, the pace of registration within the past 3 months (January-March) must have been slow, causing the need for NATS to seek an extension of the deadline.

In our 2022 outlook “In Dribs and Drabs“, we had expected the conversation around the NIN-SIM integration to continue for most of 2022, which informed our prediction that the integration exercise is neither a 1-year nor a 2-year journey. Though the telecom operators have deployed NIN enrolment points across the country to ensure a faster exercise, the responsibility for verifying and generating NIN for subscribers still rests with NIMC, even after being registered and uploaded by the telecom operators on the NIMC portal. The largest telecom operator, MTNN, indicated that 64% (44m) of its total subscribers had linked their NIN to the network as of December 2021. Similarly, for Airtel Nigeria, 71% (30.0m) of its active subscribers have also been verified. Overall, the SIM-NIN integration is imperative to enhancing national security, which can be achieved if most of the population have their NIN connected to their SIMs. As such, we believe the government will further extend the deadline.