THE pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, has urged the Federal Government to halt the ongoing registration of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards.
Afenifere observed that with the raging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SIM card registration exercise has become “the most irresponsible act of governance” on display in the history of Nigeria.
The National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, made the position of the socio-cultural group known in a statement issued on Friday titled, ‘NIMC registration amidst COVID-19 irresponsible.’
“It is barbaric and archaic that Nigerians are being exposed to these dangers which show a lack of critical thinking in leadership when bodies like Google can manage whatever information on people’s phones without having any contact with the owners.
“We challenge the government to respond to the strong allegation by the President of the Association of the Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (NIMC Unit), Asekokhai, that already, the virus had been detected in three officials of the agency.” at its headquarters with the government doing a cover-up.”
Workers of the National Identity Management Commission had embarked on industrial action on Thursday over the fear of COVID-19 spread in the agency.
But, on Friday, the industrial action was called off with the President, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, NIMC Unit, Lucky Asekokhai, saying, , “We just finished the meeting and the minister (of communications and digital economy) has intervened in the matter. He has promised to look into our grievances.
“So, we will be meeting with the minister on Tuesday and on that note, we have called off the strike and all workers will return to their offices by Monday morning.
“We actually served the management of NIMC a 21-day ultimatum based on the issues of welfare and safety against COVID-19 that we raised.
“The ultimatum starts counting today (Friday) officially. And for it to start counting officially from today, we had to step down the strike we embarked on yesterday (Thursday).
“So on that note also, we’ve called off the strike, while the ultimatum starts running.”
The Federal Government had on December 14, 2020 ordered telecommunications firms to disconnect the telephone lines of subscribers who failed to link their NINs to their SIMs.
