Seven days after close of SIM registration, subscribers plead for extension
NATCOMS had earlier made similar appeal to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which insisted there will be no further extension because the exercise was on for two years. The government embarked on the exercise to check the increasing rate of crimes and kidnappings in the country. Criminals exploiting the anonymity the mobile phones provide use […]
NATCOMS had earlier made similar appeal to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which insisted there will be no further extension because the exercise was on for two years.
The government embarked on the exercise to check the increasing rate of crimes and kidnappings in the country. Criminals exploiting the anonymity the mobile phones provide use the devices in perpetuating various crimes.
Also the exercise is to help develop a central data management system of all telecoms subscribers, to enable security agents make use of such data in fighting crimes, according to NCC.
But in a letter to the minister on Thursday, National President of NATCOMS, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, argued that there was need to ensure that every subscriber is given fair consideration.
Ogunbanjo said that “the fact is that a lot of subscribers will be locked out due to no fault of theirs as they think they have registered their SIM cards”
The subscribers’ association boss blamed SIM registration agents for sharp practices that discouraged subscribers from registering their SIMs.
According to him, during the SIM registration exercise some umbrella SIM registration agents were not collecting the full details needed because of the rush by the agents to register as many subscribers so as get paid big.
He said that “Some umbrella SIM registration agents, during the active registration period and even now are asking Subscribers to pay N100; a situation that discouraged subscribers. Some umbrella SIM registration agents, even when they are agents of a particular network operator, collect other operators SIM cards for registration in order to shore up the number of SIM cards they register daily”
NCC has however insisted that “There will be no extension.”
Tony Ojobo, the telecoms regulatory agency’s spokesman told Daily Trust in an interview in Abuja last week that the SIM registration has ended for good and that no extension would granted.
The SIM card registration exercise began since March 28, 2011 and NCC had at various times urged subscribers to take opportunity of many windows opened to register their SIM cards.
The NCC, whose initial deadline for the SIM registration was on the September 28, 2011, had since begun harmonisation and collation the results of the exercise.