About 65 million phone lines in Nigeria may soon be disconnected because many people did not link their National Identification Number (NIN) with their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) before the final deadline.
The deadline to link NIN to SIM ended on September 14, 2024. From September 15, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), which regulates telecom services, said no SIM card would be active without a verified NIN.
A report suggests that around 65 million phone lines could be at risk of disconnection, as many people were unable to link their NIN to their SIM before the deadline.
According to telecom data from March 2024, there were 219 million active lines in the country, with 153 million already linked to NINs. This means that about 66 million lines were still not linked to NIN by the deadline.
The chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, said that the process of disconnecting unlinked lines has already started. He did not give an exact number of disconnected lines, but confirmed that it was less than 66 million.
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Adebayo also mentioned that many people were still trying to link their SIMs on the last day of the deadline. He urged subscribers to comply with the directive, adding that the deadline was reasonable and important for national development.
“We can’t keep extending deadlines and going back and forth on this issue. This is a national concern, and these data are critical for national development,” he said.
On the other hand, the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers asked the NCC to extend the deadline. The president of the association appealed for the deadline to be moved to September 22, so customer service centres could work over the weekend and help subscribers resolve their registration problems.
He said this would help subscribers avoid disruptions in telecom services, especially since there were technical issues with the NIN portal earlier.
Just a few weeks ago, the president of the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers, Adeolu Ogungbanjo, raised concerns about the slow speed of linking NIN to SIM cards, with many people complaining about delays on the NIMC portal. He warned that these issues could prevent the completion of the NIN-SIM linkage before the deadline.
In the past, between July 28 and 29, millions of phone lines were temporarily blocked because their NINs were not verified, causing major disruptions. However, the NCC gave more time for people to comply. Now, with the deadline passed, disconnections will begin.
Before the deadline, an NCC official, who spoke anonymously, said there would be no more extensions. He added that anyone who did not comply would have their line disconnected.
MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa, two of the country’s largest telecom companies, had already barred 13.5 million lines in the first half of 2024 due to non-compliance with the NIN-SIM linkage directive.
The NIN-SIM linkage was started in December 2020 to stop the use of unregistered SIM cards and improve security in the country. The NCC had extended the deadline multiple times since then, with April 15, 2024, set as the final date for people to comply.
