SIM-NIN: Stranded Subscribers Storm Telecom Outlets (Photos)

Many subscribers on Tuesday woke up to an inability to make calls on their mobile phone lines, few hours after telecom companies barred their subscribers’ lines from making calls following a directive from the federal government.

Many of them are frantically making efforts to reconnect their lines as they lay siege to telcom outlets.

The federal government had on Monday directed telecom companies to enforce compliance with its National Identification Number-Subscriber Identity Module policy by blocking outgoing calls on all unlinked lines after the deadline for the SIM-NIN verification expired on March 31.

READ ALSO: SIM-NIN: 72.8m Unlinked GSM Subscribers Victims Of System Hitches, Poor Sensitisation

Prime Business Africa reports that 125 million SIMs had submitted their NINs for linkage, according to government-disclosed  figures.

Recall, the Nigerian Communications Commission had explained that there were 197.77 million active telecom subscribers as of February 2022.

This showed that over 72.77 million active telecom subscribers will be affected by the government directive after the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria confirmed that its members would comply with the directive.

In a statement on Monday, it said, “ALTON members are committed to complying with the instructions and call on telecommunication subscribers who have not obtained and/or linked a NIN to their SIMs, to do so at any of the designated centres.”

Checks by our correspondent on Wednesday revealed that subscribers have started visiting telecom service centres in droves to link their NIN to their SIMs.

At the Opebi centre of MTN, representatives of the company were seen trying to help subscribers link their SIMs despite a server downtime.

One subscriber said: “ This is a serious matter because I can’t even make any call but I call receive calls and text messages”.

Another subscriber said his own case was worse because he could neither make calls nor receive any calls and text messages”.

When asked about the number of subscribers that have visited the service centres at the time of visitation, it was confirmed that the number stood at 200.