The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on telecommunications subscribers who have linked their SIM cards to their National Identification Numbers (NINs) but are still experiencing network disruptions to visit the outlets of their service providers to validate their NINs and resolve other issues.
The NCC spokesman, Reuben Muoka, who made this call on Monday, said some of the NINs submitted by the subscribers were not verified or cleared by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the agency responsible for issuing NINs.
Muoka, who spoke on Channels Television’s Morning Brief programme, said some of the NINs had verification and identification issues, such as disparity in information, names, and other data, which did not match with what the customers registered with their SIM cards.
He said the NCC had directed the telecom service providers to bar subscribers who have failed to link their phone numbers to their NINs on or before February 28, 2024, as part of the federal government’s efforts to tackle security challenges and create a digital identity database for Nigerians.
As disclosed by the NCC, as of December 2023, Nigeria had over 224 million telecom subscribers, with MTN having over 87 million subscribers, representing 38.79% of the total market share, the highest in the country by any licensed Mobile Network Operator (MNO). Globacom and Airtel had 61 million subscribers each while 9mobile had 13.9 million users.
However, Mouka said millions of lines were barred last week at the expiration of the deadline, adding that the NCC had been going through one deadline after the other since 2022 to give extension for convenience “but it was time to get to a closure.”
Muoka said the NCC would conduct an audit before the end of the week to ascertain the actual number of phone lines that have been barred, as data is expected from the service providers.
He said the NIN-SIM linkage had an objective which was to make Nigerians have digital identity to tackle security matters and access various digital services and products.
He said, “People who probably didn’t get a cleared or verified NIN have been barred because the earlier ones they submitted were not good. There are still some subscribers whose NINs are yet to be verified by NIMC and those have to also be corrected.
“For now, it requires those physical visits to the stations to get it verified and validated but in the future, we hope that this will be done virtually.”
“Take it that everybody who has not submitted his NIN to the service providers has been barred. Actually, the service providers started barring people many days before the deadline.”
“The whole essence is actually to achieve the convenience that digital services and products will offer. By the time you have your identity together, you will be able to attend to a number of things. Even the banks are now asking their customers to link their NINs to their Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs). It is actually to make a holistic package of all your digital services.”
