Communications and digital economy minister, Isa Pantami, has blamed Nigerians for thronging offices of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) across the country for National Identity Number (NIN) registration.

Many Nigerians are rushing to obtain their NIN in order to beat the February 9 deadline by the government for the linking of NINs to telephone SIMs.

An earlier announcement that citizens who fail to link their SIMs to their National Identity Number (NIN) will have their SIMs blocked.

But speaking with Channels TV on Friday, Mr. Pantami said “90-95 per cent” of citizens seen at the premises of NIMC were not invited for biometric capturing, adding that efforts to dissuade citizens from crowding NIMC offices has failed. 

 “Citizens will go there, their names are not part of those to be captured but they will go and stay at the gates, and if you ask them to leave they will not,” Mr. Pantami said. “All the crowds you have been seeing in Abuja or Lagos, 90 percent or even 95 percent of them were not part of those invited to be captured. They only go there and stay outside the gates.”

This development has attracted criticism from citizens as many question why government came up with the idea just at a time when a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic was springing up. 

Mr. Pantami argues that it takes less than five minutes to do biometric capturing at NIN registration centres, adding that only biometric capturing require physical presence of citizens.

“Each person takes around three to five minutes to complete the registration and go as long as you have completed your form,” he said.

“You can complete the form virtually without visiting any office but there are things that require you (to be there) physically like your biometrics; you cannot submit your biometrics without you (being there) physically.”