The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it is the duty of the Nigeria Police Force to track bandits and kidnappers using the National Identification Numbers (NINs) of victims linked with their SIM cards.

NCC spokesman, Reuben Muoka, who was on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Monday, said the objective of the NIN-SIM linkage is to make Nigerians have digital identity to tackle security challenges.

In January, seven members of a family including six sisters were kidnapped in the Bwari area of Abuja and the kidnappers had demanded about N100m as ransom. One of the victims, Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar, was killed while the others regained freedom.

A former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, had said security agents weren’t using the NIN to track kidnappers and other elements engaging in nefarious activities. None of the security agencies have countered the minister’s claim.

Asked on Monday why kidnappers weren’t tracked despite that they contact the families of their victims using phone numbers, the NCC spokesman said, “lt’s difficult to begin to attend to issue that bandits, for instance, use a phone of the victim to make calls to the family because there is nothing one can do about it except the security agencies find a way around it.

“This is the reason we are talking about NIN-SIM linkage because we are taking about the people using phones to have their identities to help security agencies to track such calls.

“It is a duty of security agencies. We are providing all the necessary (information).”

Muoka said “it is the police that they (victims’ families) will apply to. From the rank of Deputy Police commissioner and below, they will be able to do the tracking.

“The essence of submitting these identities is to also assist the security agencies in fighting crimes. They may not tell you the number of crimes they have also resolved by use of well-identified individuals using phones.” (Channels TV)