Tag: SIM Cards

From the onset, people were not so much against the SIM-NIN Linkage policy of the Nigerian government, especially for the reasons it was introduced, for the fidelity of our electronic business transactions, now digital economy, and for the security of lives in our nation.

But people railed at the timing, which was during the COVID-19 period, a time people couldn’t mass together in an environment, when humanity failed the test of being their neighbour’s keeper, as visitations, meetings and office operations were migrated online – the policy achieved the direct opposite; and the very brash way the policy was introduced with obvious betrayal of inadequate preparations and a lack of readiness that could hardly be understood in a serious government setting.

The policy was introduced with boldness and bravura by mid December 2020, and was designed to last for two weeks. Just two weeks! The end of the project, I can faithfully inform you now, stretches into the future without dates.

Just what is he talking about? Just the same way you are thinking. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), last week, with some gloat, announced September 14, 2024, as the new date for the process to be fully completed, directing the mobile operators to deactivate all SIMs not properly harmonised with their NINs by September 15, 2024.

“To ensure full compliance with the NIN-SIM linkage policy, the NCC has directed all Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to complete the mandatory verification and linkage of SIMs to NINs by September 14, 2024.

“Effective September 15, 2024, the Commission expects that no SIM operating in Nigeria will be without a valid NIN,” the statement said.

For the umpteenth time, the NCC has given a deadline for a project which a former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy started with hubris, but will it be cast in stone this time? The answer doesn’t readily appeal to me but one thing that is sure is that, overtime the regulator has made itself laughable, not because it is unable to complete a project that looked simple and over which so much money has been expended, but also because it has nearly lost its regulatory capacity to say something and enforce compliance.

Feeling very upbeat about its latest communication on the subject, the NCC in the statement signed by Public Affairs Director, Reuben Muoka, said “the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is pleased to announce significant progress in the Federal Government’s 2020 policy to link all Subscribers Identification Modules (SIMs) to National Identity Numbers (NINs). To date over 153m SIMs have been successfully linked to a NIN, reflecting an impressive rate of 96 per cent, a substantial increase from 69. 7 per cent in January 2024.”

After all the missteps from the beginning of the project, this really is a whiff of good news but it also has substantial variance with reality. Everyday new SIMs are being sold which status remains undetermined while already there is still a huge difference between 153m already processed, and the 219m SIMs held by subscribers as at March this year, prompting one newspaper to report that by the time the project comes to a close in September, there will still be over 50m SIMs out there unable to satisfy the integrity of the process.

But there are more reasons to worry. The NCC statement gives me the jitters. “Through collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the NCC has uncovered alarming cases where individuals processed an unusually high number of SIM cards – some exceeding 100, 000,” the statement said.

Security concerns in the country are hitting frenetic levels. Bandits have taken over roads and forests, killing and maiming and kidnapping for ransom. A major reason for the introduction of the policy was to help curb insecurity. It was once seen as a silver bullet to cure nearly every security challenge but such expectations have since been dashed.

The policy allows an individual to register a maximum of four SIMs, thereby raising serious concerns how a few individuals could possess the number of SIMs stated in the NCC statement . This writer has no information on anybody arrested for such a seeming brazen contravention and going through prosecution at the moment. What would anybody be doing with 10 SIMs, 20 SIMs or even 100 or 1000 SIMs? What is going on here that nobody is ready to talk about?

The NCC has also declared in the statement that “the sale and purchase of pre-registered SIMs are criminal offences punishable by imprisonment and fines.” I expect the NCC to mount a full media campaign around this so that some low-level players embedded in the value chain can be educated and avoid the full wrath of the law.

Will this deadline be cast in stone? I don’t think so. Reasons. There are a number of stakeholders in the ecosystem whose response may determine what happens next. One, the subscribers, members of the public, who are dragged and defocused by the daily concerns of life, to the extent that they may not give so much thought to the NCC’s position until the very last minute.

The other stakeholders in the ecosystem are the operators who own the platforms on which the entire conversation is taking place. They maintain a database of all their subscribers and are able to quickly look up anything they want to know or see on the dashboard. This writer has been reliably informed by an industry source that the NCC deadline is quite fair to the operators and that implementation and compliance with directives may not be difficult. The process of implementing the directive may also determine whether it will stoke a bedlam as we saw previously. The industry source has assured that this time,  the operators are on top of the game. The substance to this small boast will be seen in the days ahead.

There is yet another party in the ecosystem. NIMC, which maintains the National Identity Database, has a finishing responsibility in the NIN-SIM linkage policy process as it has to conduct the final harmonisation process. However, even with resource support from the industry, plus government budgeting, its capacity to really support the process and play its complementary role, has remained in doubt. There is a concourse of opinion that NIMC lacks the capacity to play this game. Nobody knows however, whether the coming of Engr Bisoye Coker-Odusote as chief executive. has provided the magic wand to switch its fortunes for good. Again, NIMC’s readiness will unfold in the days to come.

Here is my humble conclusion. There will always be errant SIMs out there. There will always be people who will not want to register their SIMs for whatever reasons. But it is the responsibility of the NCC to take a decision that sticks, a decision that binds all the players in the telecommunications ecosystem, especially in the face of festering security challenges. The NCC should play its role and, in the process, stimulate the nation’s security system to apply some of the provisions of modern technology to resolve daunting security challenges confronting us as a nation.

It was my strong determination this week to write in defence of the Tinubu administration that it couldn’t be behind the large scale disconnection of mobile lines as a sure channel of ensuring that those planning demonstrations over hardship in our nation on  August 1, 2024, fail in the process as they will be unable to communicate with each other.

It was a decision that wasn’t going to serve me right but I was ready to take some fall in standing for the truth even if the timing was inappropriate. Is the truth still out there? Let me observe that there are so many strands of stories flying all over the place that truth is confused for fiction and even fiction is assuming some level of acceptability except sorting and verifications are detailed.

Too many things unfolded too quickly. An alarm was raised by Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) that there were indications that telecommunications companies in the country were trying to frustrate planned protests. He is a well-known voice in the human rights community whose concerns should not be overlooked.

“From all indications, it would seem that the underlying target of the telecom companies is to limit the reach of their customers in order to restrict access and thus frustrate the protests,” Adegboruwa complained in a statement.

His fears were genuine. There were mass disconnections across the various networks. By Monday, MTN alone, this writer gathered, had disconnected about 6m lines! Adegboruwa’s number was one of them. Around Abuja, there was bedlam anywhere MTN has a service centre or franchised service centre. Except you had the guts to be inquisitive, nobody wanted to risk his life as they thought the demonstrations were already building up.

The truth, no longer an apparition, came out very quickly. Moving posthaste to remove the noose from his members, the very proactive Engr Gbenga Adebayo issued a statement to the effect that the harmonisation exercise of the SIM Registration database and the National Identity Database which has been ongoing, was responsible for the mass disconnections.

“Customers who recently had their lines blocked are those whose records showed a mismatch between the databases. Affected customers are advised to contact their service providers through the communicated channels to resolve the issue,” Adebayo admonished.

Adegboruwa’s number fell in this category. His number was barred because the image on his registration was blurred. His case has been resolved, however.

By Monday afternoon, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which dithered in response, released a statement, titled: NCC Orders Immediate Reactivation of Lines Affected by NIN-SIM Verification Issues, to put the matter in clearer perspective.

“Over the weekend, many telecoms subscribers/consumers were unable to access their phone lines because of the inability of many telecoms consumers to verify their National Identification Numbers (NINs) with their Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs). This meant that their numbers were blocked by their service providers in keeping with laws and policies of NIN-SIM linkage.

“Since December 2023, the Commission has since reviewed the deadline a few times; April 15, 2024, was set as the deadline for the full network barring of subscribers with four or few SIMs that had unverified NIN details. This deadline was then reviewed to July 31, 2024, to give consumers more time to ensure their submitted NIN details are properly verified . Despite these extensions, many phone lines are yet to be linked with verified NINs,” the regulator explained further in a statement.

The Commission therefore directed all operators to reactivate all lines that were disconnected over the weekend in view of the short time it took them to undertake the exercise.

The directive brought a lot of attention and activities to the operators’ service centres, leading to chaotic and violent scenes in some instances.

MTN was the most affected, expectedly, because it is the largest mobile network in the country. With a total industry subscriber base of 219, 005, 878 by March 2024, according to the NCC, MTN controls 76.7m, the company chief executive, Karl Tortola, said in the company’s Annual Report.

Looking at the history of the industry, I want to point out that this is a coincidence most unfortunate. NCC has explained the position of the regulator and the industry. The disconnections had nothing to do with the planned demonstrations. But hunger, tension and apprehension can spin wild conspiracy theories which call for strategic response from the authorities. But responses from successive governments to national challenges have always been more arbitrary than strategic with sour end results.

The NIN-SIM verification exercise is a good policy but so badly implemented that the only referential qualities are anarchy and pain which it has brought upon Nigerians. Once upon a time, a former Communications and Digital Economy Minister said it would take only two weeks to implement. This is 2024. The exercise gets so convoluted daily that it takes sincerity to admit that we are not getting close to the conclusion.

Somebody asked, why would MTN disconnect over 6m lines within a short period? My answer was simple. When a child gets burnt in fire once, even fireflies frighten him.

Recall that in October 2015, MTN was fined N1.04 trn by the NCC for delaying the disconnection of 5.1m lines that were improperly registered. A negotiated agreement brought the fine down to N330bn with some other conditions. It would have been anomalous, if not extreme corporate negligence, if MTN allowed thunder to strike a second time.

But this story is not about MTN but about an entire industry that is facing serious challenges at the moment. The big operators are making losses because of a very challenging operating environment. The quality of service has gone down as operators are finding maintenance and expansion difficult. In fact, the announcement this week about a management change in 9MOBILE only amplifies the problems of the industry, and offers a little hope of a corporate rebirth that may impact positively on  the whole industry.

The mass disconnections of mobile lines over the weekend over SIM-NIN verification may just have served to draw urgent attention to an industry that needs immediate help. The operators are facing their own demons but still have to support a National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) which an industry source said does not have the capacity to move at the speed of NCC and the industry.

With such knowledge resident even within the NCC, it does not serve any purpose to issue bogus disconnection orders to heat up the polity and make an already sweating President look very bad.

One last line. The regulator has given a reprieve and final call for subscribers to carry out needed harmonisation and verification of their SIMs and NINs. Will they take advantage of it or wait for another opportunity to complain and cause chaos?

Looking at the pervasive insecurity in the nation at the moment, it will be right to say that the NIN-SIM Linkage Policy wasn’t a bad idea at all but for the sloppiness with which it was introduced by a former minister who literally slapped it on Nigerians as a necessity that must be executed within two weeks.

Although the Nigerian Communications Communications (NCC) initiated an industry SIM registration process to capture the identity of phone users since 2011, the new policy would ensure that every phone line is properly matched with a national identity number with the full compliments of registration – picture and digital imprints – for the line to function. Quite simple, it looks but the implementation would indicate otherwise.

A unique selling point of the policy was that it would guarantee consumer protection and crime prevention, support crime resolution and enhance national security by strengthening crime enforcement agencies to tackle the criminal use of mobile phones, stimulate a digital economy through online and digital transactions, while also promoting e-governance which will encourage the various tiers of government to do things differently by breaking from tedious bureaucracy.

Instead of allowing technocrats in the civil service and industry experts to promote the idea, a minister shopping for achievements, as an industry voice would observe, simply sat on the driving seat pushing a process for which he was hardly prepared. And the results came, very adversely.

But there were problems ab initio. One. The idea was not properly thought through as the two weeks ending December 2020 was too small for such a huge project. Eh em,  a project must have timelines, a beginning and plausible end. This one was amorphous, plainly amorphous. Two. It was the COVID-19 period and it smacked of absolute insensitivity for anybody to encourage a mass gathering of Nigerians at service centres in the name of NIN-SIM Linkage. Three. Data-weary or data-drunk Nigerians were simply tired of being pushed around after bank verification number (BVN) and other identity collection processes they have had to go through. And four. The capacity of the primary implementation agency, NIMC, was exaggerated. Apprehension reigned and it is still reigning.

For instance, over three years down the line, a project that should have ended in two weeks is not half done. And the process continues to convolute.

But there is an interesting story of a group of people finding strength in adversity or in anything that threatens their survival. The various stakeholders expressed a camaraderie in action. Knowing there would be challenges in the way, they bandied together to resolve issues before they ballooned into big problems. They set up registration centres and even built capacity in the implementation agency with monies running into several billions of Naira.

However, the security situation in the country gives no indications that the above measures have worked at all. Children are being kidnapped in hundreds from their schools and there are killings going on in different parts of the country. Phones are used to negotiate ransoms and nobody is apprehended. The NCC is under pressure to take urgent measures to stem the tide although the regulator has no network of its own.

As the regulator, the NCC holds the yam and the knife and has never been reticent in slicing pieces to whoever it wants. It also holds the stick to whip operators into line. Media headlines demonstrate the capacity of the NCC to take certain measures even if they hurt.

A particular headline stated, “SIM-NIN linkage: NCC rules out extension, telcos bar 12 million lines.” The NCC directive was effective February 28, 2024.

Referencing this action, President of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Engr Gbenga Adebayo, disclosed that “About 12 million SIM cards may not have been linked to NIN. Some of these SIM cards work on modems and mifi devices. According to the regulatory directives, those numbers that are not properly linked to NIN will have services withdrawn to them by midnight today. We stand by that regulatory directive and we are going to comply.”

Good speaking in the face of very serious implications. Some of these lines were high revenue yields. The operators would have to lose that money. The subscribers would have to bear the inconvenience of such disconnection. And insecurity continues because such complex issues are not resolved with deus ex machina.

This writer gathered that the NCC, working closely with the telecoms service providers, may have carried out a number of regulatory decisions subterraneously without puffing the smoke of such action in public. While a subscriber could hold four SIMs on each network in line with international best practices, the regulator, after some detailed auditing of the networks, was confronted with a situation where some individuals had as many as 100SIMs, 1000SIMs and even 10,000 SIMs all at a go.

Pray! What does an individual have to do with 10,000 SIMs? Contemplating the grave security challenges that such unsavoury development could portend, the NCC has had to quickly weed those numbers out from the database of the various networks.

While Adebayo may have spoken very boldly about complying with regulatory  directives of the NCC on NIN-SIM linkage, what appears troubling is that the service providers in the country have been holding the short end of the stick even at grave financial and material losses.

For instance, by way of protecting their business, the operators had to set up thousands of NIN Enrolment Centres at their service centres to facilitate seamless NIN acquisition by the citizenry. This has not provided the magic wand, however. One can inform here that the next puzzle was that NIMC did not have the capacity to process the data being captured in these centres.

It is not news any more that the telecom operators had to provide some technical support for NIMC, the government agency entrusted with curating the identity details of the citizenry. In a particular instance, MTN shelled out a billion Naira after an initial two hundred million that vanished like a drop in the ocean. Others provided sundry support.

What is clear about NIMC at the moment is not a sudden return to efficiency but the appointment of a new head in Engr Bisoye Coker-Odusote who has promised to clean up the rot in the place and position it for performance. With such disposition, it will be an overkill to continue to flagellate NIMC except to wait for what may seem a moment of magic from the new chief executive.

In this story, there is a government under pressure to save the people from security nightmares, there is a regulator that superintends a vital link in the security architecture (if you accommodate the cliche), and there is a NIMC that manages the nation’s identity, with the operators being the last in the chain. This writer has  been informed that the nation’s security apparatus occupies an overarching position in this chain but how well it has deployed the technology available in the telecom networks  can only be explained, perhaps, by the security challenges in nearly all parts of the country.

My take is that the NIN-SIM linkage is a story in search of a good ending or, if you like, a proper denouement. For this to happen the relevant stakeholders need some moments of self introspection, to examine their ways and resolve to do things with more creativity. Urgently, NIMC needs more help from the government and industry as it has noticeably remained a disastrous link in the entire value chain . The operators who are appealing to the regulator for more time before putting a final ban on lines without linkages, should be able to project a time for the process to embrace a closure. Or should the exercise last forever!

I am quite aware of the various efforts the regulator has canvassed to ensure the process remains seamless and less burdensome. Even then, it should not be too stiff-necked to listen to complaints, observations and suggestions. For instance, it is common knowledge that the process has wobbled because NIMC, which is an agency of government, lacked capacity or even the sincerity to conduct such a sensitive exercise. My sympathy therefore, is with the operators when they beg for more time or extension before lines are barred or even make some other demands. The operators don’t need to suffer losses because of the failure of an agency of government. They too need a fair hearing and proper representation in this NIN-SIM linkage story that has no end.