Mobile subscribers trying to complete SIM swaps across the country have been unable to do so due to the unavailability of the National Identity Management Commission’s NIN Verification Service (NVS).

The affected NIMC portal enables telecom firms, the Nigerian Immigration Service, banks and other organisations to verify the National Identity Number of their customers before attending to them, in line with the Federal Government’s directive.

Following the directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission for the inclusion of NIN in the requirements for all new and existing SIM cards, telecom firms are required to synchronise their SIM registration portals with the NIMC portal in order to verify the details of their subscribers.

In a statement on Saturday, the NIMC had confirmed the problem, which it attributed to ongoing maintenance.

“The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) wishes to inform the general public that its NIN verification Service (NVS) is temporarily unavailable due to the maintenance service being carried out by one of the Commission’s network service providers,” the statement said.

“The NIMC wants to assure the public that verification and authentication services would be restored once the maintenance is concluded.

“The Commission apologises for any inconvenience this might cause our esteemed customers, as all hands are on deck to ensure speedy restoration.

“Meanwhile, the public can make use of the alternative Tokenisation verification platform.”

The affected NIMC portal allows third parties to confirm the identity of customers.

Apart from telecoms firms, financial institutions and government agencies also rely on the service.