THE PUBLIC SPHERE with Chido Nwakanma Three of the four GSM service providers lead the list of 203 firms the Nigerian Identity Management Commission appointed 16 December as Data Capture Agents to assist it with the registration of Nigerians into the identity database. It came on the commencement of a peremptory two-week deadline for citizens wishing to continue using their phone lines to ensure the integration of their National Identity Numbers (NIN) with their SIM cards domiciled with the telcos. I questioned the rationale for such an imperious order given the circumstance of COVID-19, environmental conditions, time of year, and experience of citizens with attempts at getting either the NIN or the national ID before it.