NIN REGISTRATION MAY BE SUSPENDED OVER RISKS OF CONTRACTING COVID-19 - MINISTER OF STATE FOR HEALTH, DR OLORUNNIMBE MAMORA
Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, Nigeria's Minister of State for Health, has said the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) registration may be suspended over high risks of contracting COVID-19.
The Minister, while speaking with Channels TV on Monday, urged the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to re-organise the registration process to avoid large crowds of people at its centres across the nation.
Mamora, who is a member of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said the Government is committed to the welfare of Nigerians and would protest them at all times.
“I don’t feel good looking at the picture where people are gathered in multitude; it’s like a superspreader event which we don’t like. But I’m also aware that the relevant ministry which is the communications and digital economy is looking at this.
“My understanding is that the whole process may be suspended so as to reorder the whole process in terms of management of the crowd because it was never intended that it would become a rowdy process like that.”
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“We have a duty as government to ensure that people are protected; we also have a duty to ensure people comply within the limit of what is good for the society at large," he said.
On Thursday, Eons Intelligence reported that NIMC staff embarked on an industrial strike action over exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of personal protective equipment and poor funding. The staff however called off the strike 24 hours later.
On December 15, the Federal Government issued a two-week ultimatum to all mobile networks in the country to block all Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) without National Identification Number (NIN).
It also said telcos subscribers with NIN have January 19 as deadline to link their NIN with their SIM cards while subscribers without NIN have until February 9 to do so.
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