The Federal Government says all Nigerians, subscribers and applicants can access the service for NIN retrieval using the *346# code is now free for the duration of the NIN/SIM Card integration exercise.

This was contained in a letter by the Executive Vice Chairman Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta and the Director-General of National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, Engr. Aliyu Aziz conveying the implementation of the directive to stop charges on NIN retrieval.

According to them the relevant authorities had met with, and negotiated a waiver with the Mobile Network Operators in that regard.

“By this waiver, all Nigerians, subscribers and applicants can access the service using the *346# code for their NIN retrieval at no charge for the duration of the NIN/SIM Card integration exercise.”

A few days back, the Federal Government had directed that all NIN should be integrated with the Subscriber Identification Modules for security purposes and ordered the network operators to ask all their subscribers to provide valid NIN to update their records and suspend SIM registration.

The development sparked diverse reactions from Nigerians who questioned the rationale behind the short notice, insisting the time frame was short.