TECHDIGEST –  An overload of demands on the server of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is stalling ability of network operators to reactivate over 75 million phone lines blocked since April 5 when government deadline elapsed for individual’s National Identification Number (NIN) to be mandatorily linked to their Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card.

The NIM-SIM link process had more than 80 million captured data integrated but nearly that number also have been blocked as unverifiable lines.

Also, immigration authorities are blaming inability for new passport issuance or renewal on the technical blackout from Nigeria’s identity management agency as the ‘NIMC server logjam’ impacts negatively across sectors including the financial industry where banks customers are on strenuous queues awaiting feedbacks on their NIM/SIM to BVN integration.

Financial transactions without linked data are automatically invalidated leaving many businesses particularly small medium enterprises (SMEs) on edge. Telcos are putting the blame on NIMC which had an unforeseen downtime weeks back forcing a “massive backlogs of request for validations that will take weeks to resolve,” said someone knowledgeable about the challenges in NIMC to IT Edge News in Abuja.

READ ALSO : FG Extends NIN-SIM Verification As NIN Enrolments Surpass 71 Million

“Right now, the servers are overwhelmed, proned to invalidate or even not validate already linked data of NIN and SIM owners. Backend integration is not happening within expected real-time so from a technical point of view it will take a long time to get things seamlessly running and bring succour to those affected,” the expert added.

When already linked lines are invalidated, it forces the subscriber to repeat the entire process all over again with resultant “waste of time and money,” said one angry phone subscriber in Lagos.

The umbrella body for telecom operators, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said slow verification from NIMC remains a major challenge as operators cannot reactivate blocked lines without verification. NIMC controls the central database and must confirm all NINs before linkage can be effected to get the phone working again for any subscriber.

Ordinarily, verification should be instant. But it could take days with clogs of data awaiting attention from NIMC’s end. The implication is a pile up of frustrations across the country and across sectors.

“The problem is the inability to link your biodata with your NIN. That is beyond our control. The server of NIMC might be down, it rarely happens, but it does happen,“ said Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Abdulrauf Aregbesola.

His ministry’s supervises the Nigeria Immigration Services (IMS) incapacitated to issue new international passports owing to technical challenges from the NIMC data server.

To further reduce rising cases of kidnapping for ransom and other security challenges, the government made NIN-SIM mandatory in December 2020 occasioned by multiple deadline extensions to fuel critics warning that the entire exercise was being stampeded without proper planning.

Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, thinks a more cohesive approach by all stakeholders including telcos, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and NIMC could help to allay mounting anxieties over economic and social losses while NIMC works the data surge.

Source : ITedgenews

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TECHDIGEST – The Federal Government has applauded the commitment and dedication of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) towards enhancing digital skills development among youths, through implementation of various Information and Communication Technology skill acquisition programmes.

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, gave the commendation during the inauguration of a Digital Nigeria Centre (DNC), a project executed by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of NCC, at the Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ilesa, Osun State recently.

Representing President Muhamadu Buhari at the event, Aregbesola commended the NCC for timely and thorough implementation of the project, saying he was confident that the project will promote the connection of public secondary schools to broadband internet in Ilesa community and ultimately equip beneficiaries with 21st century skills.

“I would like to thank my very good friend and brother, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, for assenting to our request to have the first of this remodeled project in Osun State sited in Ilesa. I will also like to thank the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta and the entire Management and staff of NCC and the USPF, as well as their technical partners for a timely and successful completion of this laudable project,” he said.

On the sideline of the commissioning, Aregbesola also announced the establishment of President Muhammadu Buhari N100 million Technology Fund for Youth Empowerment, to nudge the emergence of world class technology experts. The Minister of Interior stated that the Fund targets 2,000 youths in the next two years, who will be provided with devices for training in different areas such as software development and design, amongst others.

The Governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola, who was represented by the state’s Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Babatunde Olawale, expressed the gratitude of the State Government to the Federal Government, the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission, for initiative and particularly for inaugurating the pioneer remodeled DNC project in Osun State. Oyetola also informed the enthusiastic gathering that Osun State Government was willing and ready to collaborate with NCC to replicate the project in other parts of the State.

Speaking in the same vein, Pantami, who was represented at the event by the Chairman, Board of Commissioners of NCC, Prof. Adeolu Akande, also commended the NCC and USPF on the delivery of the DNC project on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He declared that the project and similarly instituted ones were initiated by government to give expression to its vision to effectively digitise the nation’s economy for increased prosperity for all Nigerians.

Pantami stated that the Federal Government is focused on promoting digital economy across the country and that this had informed the renaming of the Ministry of Communications to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. On the heels of the re-christening, Pantami recalled that the Federal Government emplaced Digital Nigeria-oriented policies to reinforce the focus of existing policies in order to accelerate the delivery of derivable benefits of digital economy to Nigerians, regardless of their locations and circumstances.

Very central among the policies is the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030, a 10-year, eight-pillar focused blueprint for actualising Federal Government’s digital economy agenda unveiled in November, 2019.

Pantami asserted that the DNC inaugurated at Ilesa was a concrete implementation of the Digital Literacy and Skills, the second pillar of NDEPS.

According to Pantami, the overarching objective of the DNC project is to facilitate adoption of digital lifestyle in the schools as well as in the school communities. The Minister averred that the project’s significance cannot be under-estimated, considering its ability to improve digital skill for the youths and subsequently make them globally competitive.

Pantami said the Nigerian government is determined to arm the youths with digital skills, strong literacy and numeracy skills, critical and innovative thinking skills, complex problem solving aptitude, the ability to collaborate, and deploy socio-emotional skills, which they require to transform their lives and build the economy.

“We have already made a number of giant strides in the development of our digital economy culture and the deployment of initiatives such as the Digital Nigeria Centre eloquently demonstrates the current administration’s commitment to connecting all Nigerians,” Pantami said as he equally expressed Federal Government’s commitment to its tripartite agenda of improving the economy, curbing corruption and enhancing national security through effective deployment of ICT in all nooks and crannies of the country.

In his remark, Danbatta, who was represented at the event by the Commission’s Director of Projects, Iyabode Solanke, said all the regulatory activities, initiatives and programmes that the Commission had undertaken since 2019, in collaboration with its critical stakeholders, including its arm, the USPF, have been targeted at giving concrete expression to Nigeria’s deliberate policy to migrate to a full digital economy.

He said the Commission achieves this by consistently committing itself to expansion of appropriate infrastructure to enhance digital literacy and skills in view of the economic and social impact of digitization on all sectors.

The NCC Chief Executive restated the Commission’s commitment to the overall objective of bridging the digital divide through the provision of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as broadband access to the unserved and underserved institutions and communities in the country.

Earlier, the Principal of Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ramota Ilesanmi, thanked the President Buhari-led Federal Government for the project, saying that it will go a long way in meeting the ICT needs of students and residents of the city.

The DNC, formerly known as School Knowledge Centre (SKC), is one of the projects in the Access Programme framework of the USPF, conceptualized to promote the availability and utilisation of ICT and resources of the Internet in teaching and learning in public schools in underserved, unserved and rural areas.

Specific objectives of DNC are to increase ICT literacy among school teachers and students; provide a platform for accessing online educational resources; equip students with ICT skills; facilitate ICT adoption in teaching and learning; as well as increase pass rate in Mathematics, English language and other science subjects.

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TECHDIGEST – Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, will commission a Digital Nigeria Centre (DNC) project in Osun State on Friday, January 14, 2022.

The project is part of government’s efforts to give concrete expression to the underlining principles and fundamental philosophy of the emergent digital culture in Nigeria, particularly Item No. 2 of the eight pillars of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030.

Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State, is also expected at the event as a Special Guest of Honour.

According to a statement signed by Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, director, Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the Digital Nigeria Centre, hitherto known as School Knowledge Centre (SNC), targets students and youths for skills acquisition in order to increase Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy among school teachers and students; provide a platform for accessing online educational resources; equip students with ICT skills; facilitate ICT adoption in teaching and learning; and increase pass rate in mathematics, English language and other science subjects.

This project, the first to be commissioned in Osun State since the modification of the project as DNC, is located at the Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ilesa.

The four components of the Digital Nigeria Centre include ICT Tool component (made up of 40 desktop computers with embedded operating systems, server, printer, remote-controlled projector, high resolution scanner, and e-learning software). Another component is the Power structure, consisting of an inverter that comes with its charger, solar panels, batteries and automatic changeover.

There is also a Connectivity component, made up of routers, switches, firewall for network protection, modem, fibre/microwave radio or VSAT and bandwidth for internet connectivity. Finally, there is a non-ICT component constitutive of the furniture, cabinet, cooling systems, and allied appliances.

The DNC is a project of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), established under the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003 with the overarching objective to carry out the Commission’s statutory mandate of expanding the frontiers of universal access and universal service by ensuring service provision to unserved and under-served areas of the Nigerian economy.

Therefore, as mandated by NCA 2003, the USPF promotes the widespread availability and usage of network and application services throughout Nigeria by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision of network services and applications services to institutions, particularly in unserved and underserved areas and for underserved groups within the community.

Since inception in 2006, the USPF under NCC supervision and directive of the Minister, has implemented series of programmes and projects that promote ICT inclusion and adoption to mainstream accessibility to communication services for citizens and position Nigeria for global competitiveness in the emergent digital culture.

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