A deadline has been given to telecommunications operators in Nigeria to disconnect Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) not connected to the National Identity Number (NIN).
According to the telecommunications operators, all SIM cards not connected to the National Identity Number will be disconnected from February 28, 2024.
Gbenga Adebayo, the chairman Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), confirmed this to Newsmen on Tuesday.
He said the directive to deactivate SIMs not linked to NIN is the Nigerian Communications Commission, the country’s telecom regulatory body.
He explained that the implication is that subscribers of Nigeria’s Mobile Network Operators, including MTN, Airtel, and Globacom, whose SIMs are not linked to NIN, will be deactivated.
“The implication is that those who do not have their SIMs linked to the National Identity Number or whose lines have been linked but are yet to be verified need to do otherwise; otherwise, they will be disconnected.
“You know that it is a government directive; it is not our decision; if you read the press statement, the Nigerian Communication Commission directed that we should withdraw the service.
“We only have to abide by the regulatory directive. We are concerned about the directive because of the number of active subscribers on the networks, but we can only ask people to abide by it because it is a government directive,”
The development came after the federal government issued several NIN-SIM linkage deadlines.
Recall that in December 2020, the federal government introduced the SIM-NIN Linkage policy to curtail insecurity and enshrine sanity in the telecoms sector.
According to NCC, the number of telecom subscribers in Nigeria hit 220,715,961 million as of August 2023.