Over 40 million telephone lines have been blocked by telecommunication operators at the expiration of the February 28, 2024 deadline issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for telecom consumers to link the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) to their National Identity Numbers (NIN).
It would be recalled that the NCC set a deadline of February 28, 2024 for all telecom consumers to link their SIMs with their NINs or face disconnection.
The total number of disconnected lines represents a 28 million increase from the 12 million telephone lines initially planned to be deactivated by telcos, following the NCC directive.
In a December 2023 notice, the NCC had asked telcos to bar SIMs that had not been linked to their owners’ NINs by February 28, 2024.
On Thursday, the NCC Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Mouka, ruled out an extension of the deadline, warning that telcos that failed to enforce the deadline would be sanctioned.
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, in an interview with the Punch on Sunday, said:
“I can tell you that over 40 million lines have been blocked and the affected customers are those who didn’t submit their NIN at all. Some persons have not presented any NIN to operators. They haven’t registered their SIMs or participated in the harmonisation programme. They simply haven’t made any presentation of the NIN number to their operators and those were the persons blocked. So why is the number so alarming despite repeated warnings? It shows many people still communicate but are not registered.”
In the December 2023 notice, the NCC had also requested operators to block SIM holders whose NINs have been submitted but not verified by March 29, 2024; and interdict those who have less than five lines linked to an unverified NIN by April 15, 2024.
