I received death threats over NIN-SIM linkage policy – Pantami

Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, on Friday said that his life was threatened over the execution of the National Identity Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) linkage in the country.

The minister said most of the persons who fought over the policy were now silent, noting that the National Identity Management Commission had made tremendous strides.

Isa Pantami spoke at the fourth annual Identity Day commemoration, which holds every September 16, organised by the NIMC in Abuja on Friday, with the theme ‘Traditional Institution as Critical Stakeholders for Citizens Mobilisation’.

He said, “We can only get our digital economy right when we continue to improve and encourage our citizens to enroll in our national database. When we commenced the process, many people turned against me. My life was threatened because of the introduction of the NIN and SIM registration and I resisted, believing that nobody can control my life in this world, only Almighty God.

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Apart from the threat to his life, the minister hinted that campaigns of calumny were allegedly sponsored against him to stop the policy.

“We resisted, and now, the process is working. Sometimes, I can stay for one month without speaking to the NIMC and there is no any problem. Today, most of our citizens that were fighting are now silent. Looking back from three years ago, the NIMC had managed under challenging conditions, to achieve an enrollment figure of nearly 90 million enrollments for the country.

“By the time I took supervision of the NIMC, the total number of registration centres were not up to 1,000, but today, we have over 50,000. Today, our national data base is on auto drive. We have established over 19 national policies and all of them are being implemented. This has never happened in the history of Nigeria.”