Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
The Nigeria Communication (NCC), has said that the commission is working tirelessly to curtail the incidences of illegal Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) registrations in the country.
It also said that irregularities in data, particularly for legacy (old) Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) customers, may be the cause of the repeated notifications asking them to link their National Identification Number (NIN) even after they have already done so.
NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Aminu Maida who revealed this during a meeting with newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja, said that the issue is typically that the affected lines’ picture quality in the database is no longer up to date with the commission’s regulatory standards.
Maida admonished all affected users to immediately go and update their information or risk being cut off, as the NCC has already issued a warning that it would bar all lines that are not connected to an NIN by the end of February.
Maida also said that the commission was working hard to reduce the incidences of illegal SIM registrations in the country.
“Before the SIM-NIN linkage, there was SIM registration. In 2021, when we launched the SIM linkage, the previous ones were considered as legacy SIM. We just told them to go and Link their SIMs to their NINs. Registration from that day onwards, was to be done with provision of NIN.
“Recently, we gave a notice to say that we will deactivate all SIMs that are not linked to the NIN. That pre-enforcement notice is still on, we are working on the background.
“Some of the questions you raised also came to us and we investigated. What we found out is that most of the time, the picture quality of legacy SIMs do not match the new definition in our SIM registration regulation of 2021.
“Initially they were barring those numbers and telling them to go and update their photographs. But as at now, they will just invite you at your convenience to go and update your data.
“There must be something wrong somewhere, especially if it is a legacy SIM. Go and correct them because we want to be sure that whoever is holding the SIM, is the owner of that SIM and that it is not with any other person.
“If you follow us right from time, the illegally registered SIM cards are still there and we are working assiduously to make sure that we reduce its occurrence to the barest minimum, so that Nigeria will sleep with your eyes closed at all times. So, just bear with us when they ask you to come forward, there is an issue.
“They will not send you a message if there is no issue, and it is mostly with legacy SIMs. The new ones that they capture, they link up with the SIM. There are still issues even with verifying your data with the NIN. So, those are the ones, we are working on them. We will collaborate with all agencies that are involved to ensure that we have a credible database for Nigeria”, Maida said.