SIM registration: Nigerians decry repetition

BUKOLA KOMOLAFE
Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have criticised procedures adopted by mobile telecommunication networks in the re-registration of SIM cards as directed by the Nigerian Telecommunications Communication (NCC).

They expressed their views in Abuja yesterday at the Subscribers Identification Modules (SIM) registration centres.

Many said they had been forced to register more than once for the new registration after their biometric data had been captured.

It would be recalled that the NCC had directed re-registration of all pre-registered SIM cards of mobile telephone network operators in the country.

The commission said the step was to guard against threats to national security and as a result some 10.7 million telephone lines have been blocked in the last two weeks.

The commission had ordered network operators to adhere strictly to instructions by deactivating SIM cards with defective registration.

Commenting on the re-registration, Mr Samuel Ndukwe, urged the mobile operators to be focused now to avoid another registration after the ongoing exercise.

“Some of them are really confused; I registered two days ago only to get another text message that my registration is incomplete.

“We are all civil servants and have no such time to always queue and wait for registration every other day. You register one day, get home and your line is blocked again; it is frustrating,” he said.

Other respondents complained of undue delays caused by internet fluctuations at registration points.

“Some days, they are really fast and other days the network is slow and we have to wait endlessly.

“Bad enough, when the lines are blocked, we cannot make calls, text or browse for no fault of ours,” Hajia Amina Mohammed, another respondent, disclosed.

Mr Jonah Ameh said subscribers who ported to other networks also experienced some difficulty during the re-registration.

“For those of us that ported to other networks, both networks send you messages for registration. Which do we take?

“They should just come up with a straightforward format and rule on what we need to do instead of going over registrations repeatedly,’’ Ameh said.

It was discovered that some staff members of the mobile networks had yet to re-register their cards and had their lines blocked.

Some workers of the networks, who pleaded anonymity, cited wrong thump-printing or mistakes in data collection as reasons for multiple registrations.

They, however, urged subscribers not to patronise roadside registration centres but go to the offices of the operators for the exercise.

Meanwhile, NCC has called for understanding from subscribers over the challenges encountered in the re-registration as the exercise was in national interest.