The ongoing National Identification Number and Subscriber Identity Module integration exercise has been extended by eight weeks, the Federal Government announced on Tuesday morning.

It said the new deadline was now April 6, 2021.

Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde, who disclosed this in a WhatsApp message to our correspondent, said the extension was conveyed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami.

Pantami conveyed the message during the meeting of the Ministerial Taskforce on NIN-SIM registration which held on the 1st of February, 2021.

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On December 15, 2020, the Federal Government declared that after December 30, 2020, all SIMs that were not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked.

It later extended the December 30, 2020 deadline following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020 to January 19, 2021.

It also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020 to February 9, 2021, but many organisations had called for further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process.