Apart from the alleged threats to his life, Pantami hinted that campaigns of calumny were allegedly sponsored against him to stop the NIN-SIM policy.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has alleged that he received death threats over the enforcement of the National Identity Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) linkage.
The minister said this at the fourth annual Identity Day commemoration, which holds every September 16, organised by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in Abuja on Friday.
According to Pantami, most of the persons who criticised him for the NIN-SIM linkage policy were now silent.
Pamtami said, “We can only get our digital economy right when we continue to improve and encourage our citizens to enroll in our national database. When we commenced the process, many people turned against me. My life was threatened because of the introduction of the NIN and SIM registration on BBC radio and many more, and I resisted, believing that nobody can control my life in this world, only Almighty God.”
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Pantami hinted that campaigns of calumny were allegedly sponsored against him to stop the NIN-SIM policy apart from the alleged threats to his life.
“We resisted, and now, the process is working. Sometimes, I can stay for one month without speaking to the NIMC and there is no problem. Today, most of our citizens that were fighting are now silent. Looking back from three years ago, the NIMC had managed under challenging conditions, to achieve an enrollment figure of nearly 90 million enrollments for the country,
“By the time I took supervision of the NIMC, the total number of registration centres were not up to 1,000, but today, we have over 50,000. Today, our national data base is on auto drive. We have established over 19 national policies and all of them are being implemented. This has never happened in the history of Nigeria,” Pantami said.
The event was attended by various stakeholders, including the Director-General /Chief Executive Officer of the NIMC, Aliyu Aziz.
