The Federal Government, on Thursday, lifted the ban on the registration of new sim cards.
This was disclosed by Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim, who added that directive will take effect from Monday, April 19, 2021.
The registration of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards had been suspended in December 2020 when Ibrahim, through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), directed all the Mobile Network Operators to suspend the registration in a bid to conduct an audit exercise on the subscriber registration database.
However, a statement, signed by the technical assistant to the minister, Dr Femi Adeluyi,
also disclosed that National Identification Number (NIN) registration is mandatory for the registration of new SIM cards.
The latest development was contained in revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The statement added: “…For the Corporate registration, institutions will be required to appoint a Telecoms Master (at the minimum of an Executive Management level) to provide the operational Primary NIN representation.
“The Telecoms Master will also be responsible for ensuring that the users provide their NINs to serve as a Secondary NIN.
“For IoT/M2M activations, SIM security protocols would be implemented on the SIM profile to ensure that SIMs can only be used for point to point data services specific to the URL they are working with. All other services will be barred.”
