There has been an uproar on social media, particularly on Twitter, following the breach of coronavirus protocols by hundreds of Nigerians who visited the offices of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) on Monday to get their National Identity Number (NIN).
There are trending pictures of large crowds at the Alausa office of the NIMC in Lagos and Port Harcourt in Rivers State.
PREMIUM TIMES observed that most of the people at the Alausa NIMC office were seen breaching the recent COVID-19 protocols recently imposed by the state government.
While some wore no face masks, many were not observing physical nor social distancing, an act that is a threat to efforts by the government to tackle the spread of the deadly virus which has been on rise in the last two weeks.
A Twitter user, @prinzgbemi, who shared photos of the NIMC office in Alausa, said the breach of government protocol was happening five minutes away from the governor’s office.
The rise in the number of persons visiting NIMC offices followed the directive of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) that telecommunications service providers should block subscribers who refuse to register for NIN within two weeks.
While members of the House of Representatives urged the NCC to extend its ultimatum to block phone numbers without NIN by 10 weeks, the director-general of the National Identity Management Commission, (NIMC), Aliyu Abubakar, told PREMIUM TIMES last Friday there was no extension for the announced deadline.
In the same vein, Lagos Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who is currently battling with coronavirus, announced last weekend that large crowd be banned to ensure the state is safe from the second wave of the pandemic.
Some night clubs were reportedly sealed off on Saturday by the government for flouting coronavirus safety protocols.
