Telecom subscriber groups have asked the Federal government to obey the court ruling extending the National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) integration exercise deadline by two months.
They said the one-month extension announced by the government on Friday would not be enough and demanded that the government obeyed the court judgement delivered on March 23, 2021
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had ordered the extension of the deadline for the NIN registration by two months.
Justice M.A. Onyetenu granted the extension while delivering a ruling in a suit filed by human rights lawyer, Monday Ubani, asking the court to stop the Nigerian Communications Commission from disconnecting SIM cards not linked to NINs.
The President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers of Nigeria, Deolu Ogunbanjo, called on the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy to lead by example and obey the court orders.
“May 6 is unacceptable. They should apply the court judgement. There is a court ruling that it should be extended to June 6. So their extension is of no consequence,” he said.
Also, the National President of the Association of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers, Sina Bilesanmi, said, “We are standing on the court decision. The court already gave the best decision in the interest of the consumer. So why are they extending by one month?
“If truly they are the government, they should respect the court decision. They must respect the law of the land.”
A statement jointly signed by the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde and Head, Corporate Communications, National Identity Management Commission, Kayode Adegoke, announced the FG’s decision to extend the NIN-SIM linkage by a month.
The extension was decided after a meeting held on Thursday with key stakeholders and chaired by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami.
The request for the extension has been endorsed by the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the statement said.
According to the statement, over 51 million people have already been assigned NINs, and the current number of monthly enrolments has increased significantly to about 2.6 million registrations. – Punch.
