By Juliet Umeh
Findings have shown that Nigerians purchase pre-registered Subscriber Identity Module, SIM cards, from unauthorized vendors.
This has continued to frustrate the harmonization process embarked on by the different telecommunication services operators, telcos in the country.
The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC has warned that Nigerians should desist from patronising such vendors on the grounds that such act is criminal and the implications are not good for the holders of such SIMs.
One of the disadvantages of going there is that such unauthorized vendors use the National Identification Number, NIN of the person to register more SIM cards without the knowledge of the owner.
Also, the owner of the can use it to commit crimes. The implication of that is when the SIM card is traced; whoever that has the NIN would be held responsible.
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS has shown that the total number of active voice subscribers in quarter three, Q3 of 2023 rose to 221,769,883 from the 212,201,578 reported in Q3 2022
The Executive Vice-Chairman of the Commission, Dr Aminu Maida who warned Nigerians was responding to the media on what the Commission is doing to check obnoxious practices in Nigeria.
While promising that the Commission under his leadership will fish the culprits out henceforth he said: “On the issue of registered SIM, it’s been a contentious issue in the industry because most times, we are looking for ways of bringing these people in.
“We will work on some new ways to get them to comply with what is supposed to be. We’ve done so many things like control the environment. Meanwhile, there are places where you are not supposed to even buy a SIM but Nigerians go there to buy from them.
“We are going to work from the back side because for every device that registers a SIM card we know it and we know whose signature on that device the day it was registered.
“So, we are going to follow through and find a way of picking up such people and bring them before the law especially now it is NIM-SIM linkage.
“It’s an offense for you to generate wrong NIM to register a SIM card.
But as at now, we have given a directive to all the operators to check their system to ensure that every SIM that has not linked their NIN to their SIM card will be removed for we have given a long time for everybody to have the opportunity to go before their service provider to correct whatever it is that is wrong with their SIM.
“I heard someone said even when we have registered, yes, sometimes some of those SIMs, the NIM of some people have been duplicated for other people unknown to them, so when we do this type of exercise, it is when we see them reclaiming back their SIM as the owner of their SIM.