The Federal Government (FG) has directed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to cancel the N20 USSD fee imposed on subscribers for National Identification Number (NIN) retrieval requests.
This directive is to take effect immediately, as all stakeholders have been duly informed.
This was contained in a statement signed by the ministry’s Spokesperson Mrs Uwa Suleiman on Thursday, December 18, 2020.
“The Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) FNCS, FBCS,FIIM, MCPN has directed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to remove the N20 USSD fee imposed on subscribers for NIN retrieval requests.”
Recall that FG ordered mobile operators to update all SIM cards registration record with the NIN, and instructed the operators to block SIM cards of subscribers that fail to comply with the directive within 2 weeks.
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In order to know the status of their SIM cards, subscribers have been using the NIN USSD code *346# to retrieve their NIN at N20 service charge.
TheNewsBeam had recently analysed that Nigerians would be paying about N4 billion on every N20 charged as service fee to use the NIN USSD code.
According to the statement, the directive to remove the service charges by the Ministry, “is an intervention aimed at making the process easier and affordable.”
