The Federal government has revealed plans to issue a deadline for Nigerians to link their National Identity Numbers (NINs) with their bank accounts.

Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy disclosed this to newsmen after the Federal Executive Council meeting at the statehouse in Abuja.

He disclosed that the NIN would be used to replace the Bank Verification Number (BVN) because the latter was not backed by law.

Panatami had last year set between December 16 and 30, last year as timeline for telephone subscribers to link their Subscriber Identity Module aka SIM cards with their NINs. Failure to do that would see the SIM cards deactivated.

After an outcry by Nigerians over the timing of the directive which had led to subscribers crowding at the few registration centres of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) across the country in disregard to the protocols of COVID-19, the National Task Force on National Identification Number (NIN) and SIM registration granted another extension.

A three weeks extension was granted for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020 to January 19, 2021; six- week extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020 to February 9, 2021.

However, the Federal government has further extended the deadline to April 6, 2021.