Nigerians remain at NIMC offices as MTN targets service rollout

Even as Nigerians throng offices of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in their hundreds for the National Identification Number (NIN) registration and its linkage with their Subscriber Identification Module (SIM), the agency is taking steps to ensure that the over 203 licensed agents roll out services soon.

The Guardian can authoritatively report that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, was a guest of the Director-General of NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, yesterday, where they brainstormed on strategies to fast-track nationwide rollout by the leading mobile operator.

It was learnt that the guest told his host that MTN Nigeria planned to begin NIN enrolment with no fewer than 54,000 equipment nationwide shortly.

Already, Toriola, the second Nigerian to occupy the exalted office after Michael Ikpoki, is not taking the issue of NIN enrolment lightly. He reportedly told the DG that the telecommunications firm had 14,000 enrolment equipment in the country, but was waiting for additional 40,000 to begin full-scale enrolment at its various centres across the federation.

MTN is one of the 203 agents licensed by NIMC to offer enrolment services in December 2020.Aziz had explained that the agents were picked after successfully fulfilling all the conditions in the advertised expression of interest (EOI), done in 2019, as first step towards the take-off of the National Digital Identity Ecosystem project.

According to the statement announcing the licensees, a breakdown of the successful licensees showed that 16 state governments, including Abia, Akwa Ibom, Gombe, Lagos, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Oyo, Ogun, Sokoto and Zamfara, were chosen.