The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) the Country’s Mobile regulator had directed all the Telecommunication Companies in Nigeria to register all their subscribers. The last ultimatum given by the NCC ended yesterday the twenty eight of this month with the hope that most of the subscribers must have registered their subscribers identification module (SIM) cards.
However report says so far, only fifty percent of the over ninety million active phone lines in the country had been registered.
According to the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Communication Commission, Mr. Eugene Juwah, the new subscriber identity module (SIM) cards would no longer be allowed to make calls until they are registered.
The NCC, under its former Executive Vice Chairman, Ernest Ndukwe, had in December 2009 announced that it would commence SIM Cards Registration on the first of March 2010, and would ensure that SIM Cards were registered before they were activated for use.
While some Nigerians see that decision as a welcome development that will boost security in the country check fraudulent practices and others immoral acts that mobile phones are being used for while others view it with skepticism, saying that it would affect their business on the sales of the telecommunication lines.
Some telecom operators said that they generates a lot of money from direct sales of SIM Cards from street to street and in busy market places and expressed fears that such hawking would stop with the implementation of direct SIM Cards registration.
With SIM Cards Registration, the authorized dealer who sells SIM Cards must get security details of every buyer and forward such details to the operating company which must register the details of the SIM Cards before activating it.
The expiration of the date of the SIM Cards registration does not signify that buyers cannot purchase SIM Cards anymore, they only have to register their SIM Cards immediately, while those who were unable to register would be delisted from Telecommunication Companies Networks.
The nation’s subscriber base had been increasing steadily since the commencement of GSM in 2001 in the country during the era of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and hit eighty nine million at the end of January this year.
The fear of some of the subscribers is that, most of the telecommunication companies would delist subscribers who live at the underserved areas of their coverage networks.
In view of this, the Association of Licenced Telecommunication operators of Nigeria had called on the Federal Government to shift the deadline for the nationwide SIM Registration exercise to March or May 2012.
The fear, however is that even if the Federal Government grant the extention, some of the subscribers would also fail to register. The exercise had been shifted and extended many times in the past until 14th of February this year when the NCC gave telecom operators six months to register their subscribers.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, most of the subscribers had flooded registration centres to register their SIM Cards. This consequently crippled the operators, thereby causing major systematic crises.
By and large SIM Cards registration is believed to be in the interest of public safety, national security, society cohesion and the overall wellbeing of the subscribers.
There is need for the NCC to find solution to the alleged security problems emanating from the mobile phones, especially the widely rumoured killer numbers that continue to spread across the country.
The NCC must wake up to its responsibility to ensure that the nation’s telecommunication airwaves are safe for Nigerians while those behind the unknown numbers calling people must be nailed for justice.
The country’s security agents must also show zeal and take steps to investigate the matter with the aim of verifying the truth and nip it in the bud if discovered to be actually happening as being widely claimed.
