Reactions have continued to trail the directive given by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) asking all telecommunication service providers (MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile) to put all calls on receive only to all unlinked Subscriber Identification Module cards (SIMs).
It was gathered that besides losing businesses worth hundreds of millions collectively by customers of the various network providers, customers are of the view that of what use is the bank verification number (BVN) initiated by the banks to capture customers’ identification if the government couldn’t ride on it and provide the National Identification Number (NIN) to Nigerians instead of the unproductive time being wasted at the NIN offices all over Nigeria.
A visit to one of the zonal head office situated in Lagos, a customer Tope Oni (not real name) narrated her ordeal, she said she was captured in the Lagos Office at Alausa and the staff of NIN in error put her gender as a male even though she had her hair made and wore a gown. Due to the error, the service provider glo with her number 0815…..19 refused to link her number because the gender indicated male instead of female.
Going back to NIN, the normal and usual excuse was that there is no light and also no diesel. She said customers normally volunteered to contribute to buy the diesel but the staff will always say no. Rather they prefer to refer them to other locations where money is demanded from them. She said the location at Allen, the staff in charge doesn’t resume until past 12noon or may not even come. While the one at Ikeja local government gives dates, which one is left to either tip them or leave and neglect doing the registration.
According the customer, Nigerians wouldn’t mind paying the bank N1,500 or N2,000 to have their cards ready. All the government needed to do was liaise with the banks and customers on different appointment dates they will pick up their cards just as they pick up their Automated Trading Machine (ATM) cards.
A lot of Nigerians have had to pay for the mistakes of the NIN staff and still go through hell having their NIN given to them and get properly linked to their cards.
Another Nigerian was of the opinion that this is not about data collation but an instrument to either reduce the number of those using social media to tackle the government for the upcoming election. The government is deliberately chasing shadows was his conclusion.
“Don’t Pantami, Security Chiefs and Buhari know the forests and villages where these bandits and terrorists are residing (I won’t say hiding)?
They know that quite well, yet they don’t send soldiers to go after them. Since government knows where the bandits/terrorists are, why does government leave them and is disturbing Nigerians with this NIN/SIM nonsense? Deliberately chasing shadows!”
It would be recalled that in a statement signed by the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, Federal Government stated that its directive will take effect from the 4th of April, 2022.
According to the statement, Mr. President graciously approved the many requests to extend deadlines for the NIN-SIM linkage.
At this point, however, Government has determined that the NIN-SIM Policy implementation can proceed, as machinery has already been put in place to ensure compliance by citizens and legal residents. The implementation impacts on the government’s strategic planning particularly in the areas of security and socio-economic projections.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the implementation of the Policy with effect from the 4th of April, 2022. Consequently, the Federal Government has directed all Telcos to strictly enforce the Policy on all SIMs issued (existing and new) in Nigeria.
Outgoing calls will subsequently be barred for telephone lines that have not complied with the NIN-SIM linkage Policy from the 4th of April, 2022” he said.
It says subscribers of such lines are hereby advised to link their SIMs to their NINs before the Telcos can lift the restriction on their lines. Affected individuals are hereby advised to register for their NINs at designated centres and thereafter link the NINs to their SIMs through the channels provided by NIMC and the Telcos, including the NIMC mobile App.”
