By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The Nigerians who besieged the Lagos office of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in Alausa, Lagos for their National Identity Number (NIN), overwhelmed the staff and facilities, forcing the commission to abruptly close the office.
The crowd at the office was due to the ultimatum of the federal government which gave two weeks window for all telecommunication subscribers to link their NIN with their SIM or be disconnected.
The vast majority of the telecommunication subscribers have no NIN, hence the rush to beat the deadline, which elapsed on December 31.
At the Lagos centre, on Monday, December 21, the crowd was overwhelming, making compliance with COVID-19 protocols impossible.
Premium Times quoted the director of corporate communications of NIMC, Kayode Adegoke, of saying that the Lagos centre was shut because the hundreds of people who besieged the centre refused to follow COVID-19 protocols.
He assured that the office would open the following day and that the applicants would be attended to in batches.
“In Lagos, the crowd is too much. What we are trying to do now is once you get there, let them do booking, we are adopting a booking system.
“We will attend to all Nigerians, there is no need to panic. There is no need to panic,” he said.
Only last week, the Lagos state government restricted gatherings at worship centres to 50 per cent of its capacity, ordered civil servants below grade level 15 to work from their homes, and closed all night clubs in the state, including a ban on Christmas carnivals. The move is to contain the COVID-19 second wave that has been on the rise. But the NIN registration that is ongoing across the country is likely to undermine the effort to contain the virus because adherence to social distance will be difficult to observe.