By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The federal government has stated that the implementation of the Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration will commence on Monday, 19th of April 2021.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami, said this on Thursday.
He also announced that he has approved the activation of new SIM card registration with mandatory NIN.
A statement by the Technical Assistant (Information Technology) to the Minister, Dr Femi Adeluyi, explained that the issuance of new SIMs and other suspended activities will resume on the same date, as long as verification is done and the guidelines are fully adhered to.
According to him, the Minister also directed NCC and NIMC to ensure that the provisions of the Policy are strictly followed by all operators and subscribers.
“The Minister had coordinated and led the development of the Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration in collaboration with all other stakeholders.
“An earlier Policy was approved on the 4th of February 2020, while the Revised Policy was developed in early March 2021.
“The final amendments to the revised Policy based on the directives of Mr President to make the use of NIN mandatory for all SIM registration were completed yesterday, 14th of April, 2021.
“Prior to that, the key aspects of the draft Policy were presented to the stakeholders at the 4th Review Meeting of the Ministerial Task Force (MTF) on the NIN-SIM registration which held on Friday, 26th of February, 2021,” he said.
The Policy includes Guidelines on New SIM Acquisition and Activation, SIM Replacement, New SIM Activation for Corporates and Internet-of-Things/Machine-to-Machine (IoT/M2M), amongst others. The possession of a National Identity number will be a prerequisite for each of these categories.
