The Federal Government has extended the tenure of NIN enrolment agent licences issued to mobile network operators (MNOs) from one to five years.
This is in consideration of their satisfactory performance in the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) enrolment exercise. The government said the approval is a deliberate effort to simplify the enrolment process for Nigerian and legal residents. It plans to keep monitoring the MNOs during the period.
The approval is part of four-point resolutions reached when the ministerial task force on the NIN-SIM registration held its 4th review meeting recently.
During the meeting, stakeholders reached a resolution to give MNOs approval to establish dedicated SIM Swap Centres across the 774 local government areas in the country.
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The approval requires all MNOs with already existing service centres in critical locations in these LGAs to upgrade their facilities to a level where they can qualify as SIM Swap Centres. This is aimed at bringing the centres closer to the people and reducing the challenges associated with SIM swap and replacement process for people.
Other resolutions include mandating the technical committee of the Task Force to complete the development of a new SIM issuance strategy that cannot be compromised. This is to prevent past experiences in which the process was compromised through pre-registration by some agents.
The stakeholders also resolved that a multi-sectoral ad-hoc committee be responsible for reviewing the processes for new SIM activations for legal residents staying in Nigeria for less than 24 months.
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