The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced that the National Identification Number (NIN) holders would be required to pay a processing fee depending on the type of modifications required by NIN holders. This was disclosed on Wednesday by NIMC Regional Coordinator, Funmi Opesanwo in the commission’s office located in Alausa, Lagos State. Opesanwo said, “For the date of birth correction, there is a processing fee of N15,000. For card renewal or card replacement, the processing fee is N5,000. For the modification of name or address, it is N500. So, people misconstrue this to mean that in NIMC they are asking them to pay money. No, those are for services.”
She stated that NIN enrolment is free but modification charges were necessary and payable to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the Federal Government.
Her explanation was in response to allegations leveled against NIMC officials who demanded illegal fees to link Nigerians sim cards to their NIN.
In December 2020, the Federal Government had earlier given a directive that sim cards without NIN would be blocked. This has caused a surge of Nigerians at NIMC’s offices nationwide to enroll or modify their NIN.
Mobile phone users have been given a deadline of February 9, 2021 to ensure their NIN is linked to their sim cards. Statistics as of October 2020, indicates there are 207.58 million mobile network connections, but presently only 43 million Nigerians are NIN holders, which means about 164 million mobile phone users are at risk of having their sim cards deactivated.
