On Thursday, 7th of January, 2021, some Anambra residents expressed their annoyance and frustration over their inability to register and obtain their National Identity Number (NIN) at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) office.
Applicants complained that they arrived at the office as early as 5:30 am in order to be attended to early, before going to their workplace and ended up returning back home late without achieving anything.
A correspondent called Jideofor Chukwujekwu stated that he came from Onitsha after previous attempts to register at NIMC offices in some local government areas failed.
He referred to the exercise as “unnecessary burden on Nigerians.” He expressed his fears that a large number of Nigerians might not be able to register before the due deadline as there are insufficient amount of machines and man power to go round. He said “It is frustrating and I am getting tired. If they want to freeze our phone lines for not having identification number, let them do so. How can we be registered when the people in charge are not working?” He complained about the insufficient machines to complete the registration in January.
A nursing mother, Njideka Anumudu stated that she had been coming to the office since last December without successfully being registered.
Another applicant who preferred to remain anonymous expressed his annoyance towards the incompetence of some officials making reference to a particular official called Austin who refused to give details of what the challenges were, but simply said “we are not working.”
The rush by Nigerians to get their National Identification Number is as a result of the announcement made by the Federal Government that any telephone subscriber whose NIN is not linked to his or her phone number will have the phone number blocked.
