Consumers under the aegis of the Association of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers have called for the suspension of the National Identification Number enrolment due to COVID-19 risks.
The National President, Sina Bilesanmi, in a statement issued on Monday, condemned the mistreatment of its members across Nigeria by the National Identity Management Commission and demanded that the Federal Government suspend the NIN registration, as well as apologise to subscribers.
He urged the commission to go back to the drawing board, call stakeholders meeting for solutions and re-order the enrollment process to avoid large crowds at its centres nationwide.
Bilesanmi said, “I charge the Federal Government, the Minister for Communication, the Nigerian Communications Commission and NIMC, if they are true leaders, to come out and apologise to our members and thousands of subscribers willing to come out and do their national identity card.
“I don’t feel good looking at the picture where my members of ATCIS are gathered in multitude; it is like a super spreader event which we do not like. But I am also aware that the relevant ministry which is the communications and digital economy is looking at this.
“My understanding is that the whole process must be suspended so as to reorder the whole process in terms of management of the crowd because it was never intended that it would become a rowdy process like that.”
The ATCIS president tasked the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on its duty to ensure Nigerians were protected at all times.