- By Halimah Olamide
Few hours to the deadline for the NIN-SIM linkage given by the regulator, the National Communication Commission will not extend its midnight March 29 tonight for affected lines to be blocked.
This is amidst unsubstantiated reports that the NCC will permit telecommunications companies to extend by another one week.
Sources at the NCC confided in the NPO Reports Friday afternoon that all telephone lines without NIN linkage will stop working as from 12 midnight today.
Though it was gathered that the body of telecom operators are putting pressure on teh NCC to consider an extension, sources said the NCC has refused to yield to the plea saying that the companies seem to be placing their expected temporary loss of revenues above national security.
The NCC is said to be under pressure to clean up the phones sims in the country as part of the overall security measures to stop insecurity.
This, according to information available to the NPO Reports, is why the commission is worried by its discovery that an individual has registered up to 10,000 lines .
It was also found that others may have registered up to 1,000 lines and less.
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NPO Reports’ source on Friday said the commission would not be reviewing its deadline to bar owners of more than four SIM cards whose SIM registration data failed to match their National Identity Number (NIN) data. .
“We are not standing back on our decision. March 29th is sacrosanct. Our resolve is hinged on the need to close in on the chaos of untoward ownership of multiple SIM cards with unverified NIN details. We have instances where a single individual has over 10,000 lines linked to his NIN. In some cases, we have seen a single person with 1,000 lines, some 3,000 plus lines. What are they doing with these lines?
“From our interim findings, the owners of these lines did not purchase them for decent purposes or to undertake legitimate activities.
“We have given them enough time to make the decision of which of their lines they want to keep, and discard the others. They did not. All lines in this category with unverified NINs will be barred. They will be then expected to go to their operators and decide which of the lines they want to keep, as well as submit correct NIN details.
“Some people would say they want to use it for car trackers, or for IoTs, but provision has been made for these services already. They are not under the ‘Max-4 Rule.’
“Across the world, no country allows you to have 1,000 SIM cards to make calls or texts.”
The Max-4 Rule announced by the Federal Government in April 2021 provides that telecom subscribers cannot have more than four lines per mobile network operator.
The NCC has also provided Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) an extension till July 31st 2024 within which they are expected to verify all NINs submitted by subscribers with four (4) or less SIMs, as well as bar those whose NIN fail verification with NIMC.
An authoritative source within the Commission who is familiar with the matter stated that the Commission’s management arrived at the decision at a crucial meeting it held today to review requests from the major Mobile Network Operators requesting for extension for the verification of NINs submitted.
The source also stated that the Commission is mulling the idea to approve an online application solution for MNOs where their subscribers whose NIN verification failed due to biometric mismatch can update their records on the app, while existing subscribers can register additional lines.