“Any Nigerian yet to obtain NIN risk up to 14 years imprisonment” – Nigerian Minister reveals

Nigerian govt has stipulated 14-year imprisonment for any citizen who fails to obtain their National Identification Number.

This was made known by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Ali Isa Pantami on Thursday while briefing the newsmen at the statehouse, the minister said that any Nigerian yet to obtain their NIN risk up to 14 years imprisonment according to him is stipulated in the Nigerian constitution.

He went further to say that while owning a SIM card is optional, the NIN is mandatory as a lot of transactions are not supposed to be carried out without NIN.

According to Pantami, more than 51 million Nigerians had registered for their NIN as of March 31, 2021.

He said there are 189 million registered subscriber identification module (SIM) cards in the country.

Of this figure, he said 150 million have complete registrations while the remainder has problems of improper registration.

The minister explained that NIN will determine the total number of Nigerians that have registered.

“Based on the requirement by law, each and every citizen and the legal resident must obtain his/her National Identification Number (NIN), which is being coordinated by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC),” he said.

“It’s a requirement by law but many citizens ignore it.

“No country will be successful in education, health, budget planning or national planning without a database of its citizens in place.