The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has directed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to stop charging customers N20 for National Identification Number (NIN) requests.

To retrieve one’s NIN, the person is deducted a mandatory N20 upon dialing the USSD code *346#. This order is coming after the Ministry received series of complaints across the nation from GSM subscribers.

Dr. Isa Pantami, the Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, made this known in a statement issued through his spokeswoman, Mrs. Uwa Suleiman on Friday.

“In a letter conveying the implementation of the directive, the Executive Vice Chairman NCC and the Director General of NIMC informed Dr Pantami that 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.”

“Recall that the Federal Government had earlier directed that all National Identification Numbers be integrated with Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) for security purposes.”

“The minister appreciates the efforts of all stakeholders and encourages them to continue to sacrifice more for national interest,” the statement noted.