GETTING Nigerians to register for anything is usually an uphill task for all involved. Whether it is registration of voters, getting vaccinated against COVID-19, population census, or registering Subscriber Identity Module, SIM, Cards, the experience is the same.

The citizens often have to be threatened with punitive deadlines before they respond at the last minute. The nightmarish experience in getting the people to register for the linkage of their National Identity Numbers, NIN, and SIM Cards is very typical.

With a few days to the October 31, 2021 deadline for the linkage of all SIM Cards to NINs, we are far from achieving total coverage.

As of the beginning of this month, the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, said it had identified 143 million out of the 207 million registered SIM Cards across all telecom networks with NINs.

With Nigerians possessing average of three to four SIM cards on their mobile devices, these SIM Cards are now linked to about 60 million NINs. What this means is that over 60 million SIM Cards belonging to 15 to 20 million SIM Card subscribers remain outside the NIMC’s identity threshold.