The minister of communications and digital economy, says 51 million Nigerians have enrolled for their National Identification Number (NIN) .
The minister announced the figure at a statehouse press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
According to Pantami, there are 189 million registered subscriber identification module cards in the country.
Of this figure, he said 150 million have completed registrations while the remainder has problems of improper registration.
He explained that NIN will determine the total number of Nigerians that have registered.
He warned that those yet to obtain their NIN risk seven or 14 years imprisonment as stipulated by the Nigerian constitution.
Pantami said while owning a SIM card is optional, the NIN is mandatory as a lot of transactions are not supposed to be carried out without NIN.
The registration became mandatory following the federal government directives, asking the federal government directed the telcos to block sim card that are not linked to NI
The federal government had extended the deadline to January 19, 2021, for subscribers with NIN to link it with their SIM, and February 9, 2021, for those without NIN.
The deadline for the registration has been extended to April 6.
