The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, is plodding on with his wrong-headed, poorly thought out move to uproot millions of Nigerians from the mobile smartphone and digital space, with this National Identification Number (NIN) business.
The decision of the federal government to harvest mobile phone numbers of millions of Nigerians and harmonise all of these into a single database, is a brilliant, long overdue move, make no mistake.
Linking phone numbers to NIN and having everyone’s mobile phone number captured in the National Identity Database would help the government plan and better implement people-oriented policies, help security agencies nip crimes in the bud, help law enforcement and intelligence agencies to better tackle terrorism and enable a seamless rollout of development initiatives for the mass of the people.