nister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has said the introduction of National Identification Number (NIN) has helped to reduce drastically the spate of kidnapping and banditry in the country.
He made the claim, on Thursday, while featuring on the All Progressives Congress stewardship programme, organised by the APC Professionals Forum.
Pantami said it was the initiative of his Ministry as a regulator that ensured that the National Communications Commission issued a directive to telecommunication operators to make registration of sim cards mandatory for end users.
He said: “Security cannot be ignored. Security cannot be compromised because of economic development. We have come up with so many policies in order to support security institutions.
“When I was assigned to supervise the sector on 24 August 2019, unregistered, and partial registered sims were being used to perpetuate crime in the country. “Nobody knew the total register of unregistered sims. Within less than 15 days in the office, we have engaged the NCC as a regulator. We have directed them to carry audit exercise to enable them to come up with unregistered and partially registered sims. They came with around 9.4 million which is enough to populate another country. It was the first time, we didn’t know the total of unregistered sims in the country.
“And we went further to direct NCC, to ensure that by 25th September 2019, that is only one month few days in office, I spent there to ensure that by end of September 2021, no sim that is not registered will be on our network. NCC as a regulator implemented that effectively.
“Go through history and news, from the end of September 2019 to 2020, you will discover that even kidnapping and banditry reduced to the barest minimum. “It was the time that hardly you can spend one month or more without hearing about kidnapping.”
The Minister of Communications, however, recalled that the criminals were unrelenting as they resorted to a process of purchase of pre-registered sims. He however noted that his Ministry and security agencies have moved a step further to curtail their nefarious activities.
“The more you come up with policies to make the system effective, the more criminals will come up with another strategy to compromise the policies.
“So another approach they devised was to engage agents, registered sims in Nigeria, these agents are not employees of the Federal Government. They were employees of illegal operators. Some of them do compromise the process to the extent that they used to invite somebody, give him money and say we will use your biometrics to register some sims.
They go online and get any image they can get and fix it to the passport. They used the biometrics of one person to register 100 sims. When you come to register sims, they will say okay. If you need to pre-register sims, we will give you. If you need to present your biometrics, then you can buy the cheapest.
“So criminals exploited that. They were buying pre-registered sims. And the Federal Government of Nigeria came up with another policy. National Policy on National Identification and Sim Registration to ensure that your biometrics on your sim is the same in the national database. So, that somebody cannot go and use your biometrics to register another sim to commit a crime. So if you are innocent you have no problem getting worried about biometrics.
“But usually criminals will not like to present their biometrics. Because it is the easiest way to intercept them when committing a crime.”
Earlier in his remarks, national secretary of the All Progressives Congress Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention National Planning Committee, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe said President Muhammadu Buhari was on top of the security challenges facing the country.
He accused the opposition parties of hyping the narrative on insecurity to paint the APC led administration in a bad light.
“President Muhammadu will be judged by security and other achievements but the issue of security is not going to be an artificial security situation in Nigeria.
“I want to explain this very well. Those who are trying to take down President Muhammadu Buhari through the back door will not succeed – you are hyping up for people to know that there is insecurity to bring down the government of APC and we will bring them to book Insha Allah.
“And I hope Nigerians and the media will pay attention to the minister, not taking a biased position but by empirical facts from the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, because it seems that people are now paying attention to blackmail in the social media.”
