By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The directive by the federal government on telephone providers to disconnect subscribers whose National Identification Numbers (NIN) are not linked to their sims on December 30, is taking toll on phone users and officials of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). While subscribers are distraught by the policy, NIMC workers are overwhelmed by the deluge of anxious Nigerians eager to be registered in the agency’s data base. The directive comes on the heels of desperate measures by the government to curtail the rising trend in the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
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 Christmas carnivals. The move is to contain the COVID-19 second wave that has been on the rise.
There have been a surge in the daily reported cases of COVID-19.To contain the spread, schools vacated hurriedly in many states, and certain safety restrictions reinstated.
But the same period, the federal government ordered telecommunication companies to deactivate subscribers who could not produce their National Identification Number (NIN) within two weeks. The announcement triggered a national panic because only 40 million Nigerians have been enrolled in the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) database. And among those numbers are students prepping for JAMB, majority of whom may not have phones. So, the vast of the majority of phone users have no NIN and stand potentially at risk of losing access to telecommunication resources – internet and telephony.
The possibility of losing telecommunication access has created a panic that made COVID-19 fear secondary. At the early hours of today, December 21, just ten days to the deadline, the crowd at the Lagos offices of the NIMC were overwhelming. Nigerians in their thousands were seen scrambling to have their registration done to avoid being yanked off the telecommunication sphere by December 31.
As early as 8:00am at the Alausa Lagos office, the crowd was difficult to control because of the hundreds of desperate applicants who had thronged the venue to have their registration done. The number was so huge that all the COVID-19 safety protocols were hard to be observed.
Other registration centres in the state also reported the same situations of huge crowds and the impossibility of observing social distances, making one observer to wonder that: “They canceled all concerts because of Covid-19 but here’s NIMC, a government office filled with hundreds of people. This government is tactless!”
A senior official at the Ikeja, Lagos State Headquarters of the Commission, condemned the haste at which the order was issued by the government, stressing that with the rush occasioned by the directive, the workers have been under immense pressure. “The situation is untidy. Some people besiege our various offices as early as 4.00 am, struggling for space. In a situation, where the government is preaching social distance and observance of COVID-19 safety protocols, the directive amounts to contradiction. We are not even safe. It will be good for the government to extend the time frame for the registration to avert the likely stampede that may be witnessed in the days ahead”, he said.
It is not clear if the government will rescind the order for telecommunication companies to disconnect all the lines not linked to NIN by December 31or extend the deadline. If the order subsists, COVID-19 protocols can only be observed in the breach.