The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) is on a new mission to link personal phone numbers to National Identification Numbers (NIN). This is part of the new rules that the commission has a directive to implement.

NCC Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, disclosed the development through a statement in Abuja, on Tuesday. He said the new rule is part of the directive on the suspension of new SIM registration by network operators, given by the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami.

According to Adinde, the minister conveyed an urgent meeting of key stakeholders in the communication industry, graced by the NCC Management, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the CEOs of Service Providers in the telecom industry.

The meeting was based on the need to consolidate the SIM registration data of 2019 and improve the telecommunication industry.

Adinde said the stakeholders reached an agreement to do more to sanitize the telecom sector by improving the integrity and transparency of the SIM registration process.

At the end of the meeting, Mobile Network Operators were given a marching order to implement the agreements reached which include:

“Affirmation of the earlier directive to totally suspend registration of new SIMs by all operators.

“Operators to require all their subscribers to provide valid National Identification (NIN) to update SIM registration records.

“The submission of NIN by subscribers to take place within two weeks, commencing Dec. 16 and ending by Dec 30. After the deadline, all SIMs without NINs are to be blocked from the networks.

“Violations of this directive will be met by stiff sanctions, including the possibility of withdrawal of operating license,” he said.

This development has once again, stoked the controversy that has followed national identity issues in Nigeria. In the past few years, Africa’s most populous nation has gone on a campaign of identity data collection; from voter registration to Bank Verification Number to SIM registration, it has been a continuous quest to collect personal information of people living in Nigeria.

In 2017, President Buhari ordered data collecting agencies to harmonize their data with the NIMC. As part of the data harmonization campaign, the Executive Chairman of NCC, prof. Umar Garba Danbatta directed that collected data from SIM registration be released to NIMC.

In 2019, the commission ordered the deactivation of more than 2 million unregistered phone numbers, in the biggest move yet to ensure that mobile subscribers in Nigeria have face.

Following these steps taken by the NCC, Dr. Pantami announced in October this year that there is no improperly registered SIM on any network in the country since the mass deactivation in September 2019.

Therefore, it’s surprising to many when the Minister give the directive of SIM registration harmonization with NIMC, given that the directive had been issued to network operators earlier before now.

While it seems to be the right move due to increasing security concerns in the country, it has become a repetition of a process that is wearing Nigerians out.

“We use a Local Govt. Identity certificate to register for international passport, then use Int’l passport to register for Driver’s License, then use Driver’s License to register for NIN, then use NIN to register for SIMs. Nigerian government enjoys making their citizens suffer,” Danny Walter wrote on Twitter.

Disgruntled Nigerians believe that the federal government should have learnt from the Bank Verification Number (BVN) process, where the number generated through one bank account number is used to link other accounts belonging to the same person.

Moreover, the time allotted for the data harmonization seems unrealistic as only 28 million out of more than 180 million mobile subscribers in Nigerian have enrolled into the NIMC database.

In Nigeria’s rural areas, access to NIMC and SIM registration centers poses a challenge that will hinder many from obeying the directive.

With the two weeks deadline fast approaching, millions of network subscribers risk being cut off from telecom services, and it would become a big blow to the fragile economy reeling at the mercy of recession.

The telecom industry played an integral role in sustaining Nigeria’s economy at the peak of coronavirus in the country, and the wellbeing of the telecom sector is important for the sustainability of the wobbling economy.

Experts believe that the NIMC and SIM registration data harmonization will do a great deal of service to Nigeria’s lackluster citizen data situation, but it needs more time that has been given by the Ministry of Communication.

The U.S. Electoral College on Monday put an end to the controversy that has followed the presidential election by voting to cement president-elect, Joe Biden’s victory.

U.S. states electors are required by law to vote for president and vice president on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

Joe Biden needed 270 out of the 538 electoral votes to clinch the White House, and he got more than that following wins in battleground states of Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

A total of 306 votes were cast in favor of Biden while the incumbent Donald Trump got 232. Biden reached the mark after securing all California’s 55 votes, where he won 63% of the total votes cast against Trump’s 34%.

The formalization of Biden’s victory through electoral votes has severely dented Trump and GOP members’ chances to overturn the election result.

Trump and his allies have been pushing conspiracy theories to back up their claims that the election was rigged. The Trump campaign has filed more than 50 lawsuits challenging the outcome of the election. Without evidence to back up his claims, most of the lawsuits have been withdrawn or thrown out by the courts including the two filed with the Supreme Court.

Last week, Texas, with the support of 17 other states, 100 GOP members and president Trump filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to flip the election result in Trump’s favor. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the court to block electors from voting in the Electoral College, but the Supreme Court rejected the bid.

The move by Trump and his supporters to overturn the election result, based on his spurious claims, has been widely condemned, even by some members of the Republican Party.

However, Trump’s “stop the steal” mantra has garnered momentum since the end of the election, with his supporters taken to the streets to protest the “rigged election”, and sometimes threatened electoral officials.

Along party lines, Democrats have condemned Trump’s refusal to accept defeat and his push to change the will of American voters, saying it will undermine the country’s democracy. While Republicans are divided into three: those who support Trump, those who sit on the fence, and those who condemn his after-election actions.

“A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous and wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon. Every American should have his or her vote counted,” GOP Rep. Will Turd wrote.

Biden took a swipe at Trump while delivering his victory speech after his victory was affirmed by the Electoral College.

“Today, the members of the Electoral College cast their votes for president and vice president. And once again, the rule of law, our Constitution, and the will of the people have prevailed. Our democracy-pushed, tested, and threatened-proved to be resilient, true, and strong.

“In America, politicians don’t take power-the people grant it to them. The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing – not even a pandemic or an abuse of power – can extinguish that flame,” he said.

Following the formalization of the electoral votes, many of Trump’s supporters are beginning to backtrack, calling on the president to accept defeat for the interest of American democracy.

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConell and his top deputies are urging other Republican senators not to join any House Republicans who are still objecting the presidential election results, when Congress meets on Jan. 6 to ratify the decision of the Electoral College.

Several House republicans, led by Congressman Mo Brooks, have been courting Trump-aligned senators to challenge the outcome of the electoral votes in the five battleground states.

Only one senator and a member of the House would have to sign the formal challenge to force each house to hold a separate two-hour debate before voting to uphold or discard the election results.

In case the Congress votes to discard election results in the five states, it will reduce the number of electoral votes for both Trump and Biden below 270. And if that happens, the House of Representatives will vote for a president by delegation from the state Congress.

But it will not get to that as no senator has stepped up to sign Brook’s challenge to the election result.

The insistence of pro-Trump Republicans to overturn the outcome of the election is gradually tearing the Republican Party apart. On Tuesday, Rep. Paul Mitchell disaffiliated from the Republican Party, citing Trump’s reaction to the election result, which he described as “unacceptable.”

“It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote. Further, it is unacceptable for the president to attack the Supreme Court of the United States because its judges, both liberal and conservative, did not rule with his side or that “the Court failed him.” It was our Founding Fathers’ objective to insulate the Supreme Court from such blatant political motivations,” he said in a statement.

Trump and his supporters’ final attempt to stop the five states from formalizing the electoral votes was thrown out by the Supreme Court, leaving many who had upheld the election fraud conspiracy theories to back down.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a known Trump ally who had hesitated to acknowledge Biden as the U.S. president elect, on Tuesday congratulated him, amplifying the number of world leaders who have congratulated Biden.

With almost every option exhausted, and his throng of supporters gradually tuning down, Trump seems to be left with a choice he doesn’t want to make – conceding defeat.