NIMC lists 15,000 NIN enrolment centres as telcos bar 72m unlinked SIMs

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) says it has over 15,000 national identification number (NIN) enrolment centres in the country.

The commission said this in a statement issued on Wednesday.

The development is coming after the federal government directed all telcos to restrict unlinked SIMs from making calls.

Unlinked lines are subscriber identity module (SIM) cards not yet linked with NIN.

Data from the Nigerian Communications Communications (NCC) indicated that there were 197.77 million active telecom subscribers as of February 2022.

A breakdown of this figure showed that MTN has the highest number with 74.93 million subscribers, followed by Airtel with 55 million, Globacom with 54.99 million and 9mobile with 12.84 million subscribers.

The NCC said 125 million subscribers had submitted their NINs for verification, leaving about 72.77 million subscribers on the receiving end of the federal government’s new directive.

TheCable had reported that deactivated subscribers are already lamenting the frustrations of not being able to make calls.

Some of them commented on NIMC’s official Twitter handle on Wednesday, lamenting extortion at the enrolment centres.

“Dear Nigerians/Legal Residents, please be informed that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has over fifteen thousand (15,000) NIN enrolment centres across the 36 States and the FCT,” the NIMC statement reads.

“There are over 150 centres in 40 countries in the Diaspora. Kindly click on the link to check the NIN enrolment centre closer to you.”

You can access the list of NIN enrolment centres in your environs here.