THE NATION THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013
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e-Business The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has fixed June 30 as the deadline for the conclusion of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card registration. But the service providers are asking for more time to do a thorough job of the exercise which began in 2011. How long does it take to register a SIM card? LUICAS AJANAKU reports.
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NCC, telcos tangle over SIM registration
HOUGH Vivian Ekeada, a secondary school teacher, lives and works in Lagos, she got her Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) registered in Nekede, Imo State. According to her, she was on vacation and one of her hosts told her there was a registration centre nearby. She took advantage of that to register her SIM card. While in Lagos, Vivian had seen agents lined up in Oshodi, Ikeja and other parts of the metropolis, extorting N50 from subscribers for each SIM card registered. Because she had read in the papers that the exercise is free, she refused to do the registration until the opportunity of her vacation came. Kunle Lanrewaju, a civil servant, got his SIM registered in his office. He also took advantage of a mobile SIM registration agent to do it a long time ago. He was shocked when he received a message from his service provider informing him that his SIM registration failed. He promptly walked into one of the customer care centres of his operator and got the SIM registered again. These are a few of the challenges that subscribers have to cope with during the nationwide SIM card registration exercise which was launched in March 2011 by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). When the telecoms sector was liberalised more than a decade ago, Nigerians long traumatised by the inefficiency that characterised the services of former state-run telco, NITEL, rushed to get a mobile telephone number. It opened a new window of opportunity to Nigerians in all facets of life. Amidst the euphoria that greeted this revolution, the wisdom in getting subscribers to register their lines before use was lost. That wisdom came back when the mobile phone now transformed from merely being an instrument of communication but to a sophisticate weapon in the armoury of criminal elements who buy the SIM, use it for one criminal activity or the other and dump. When kidnap-for-ransom became a time-honoured predilection in some parts of the country, mobile phones became the ready instrument to negotiate the ransom to be paid to the kidnappers. Armed robbers linked one another from one state to the other, planned their operations and unleashed pains and anguish on innocent citizens with mobile phones. It is against this backdrop that the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and other
security agencies closed ranks and agreed that there was, indeed, the need to register SIM cards in the country. Thus, it was not strange then that the NCC got a budgetary allocation of N6.1 billion for the exercise. Preparation for the exercise got underway under Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, former executive vice chairman of the NCC. The first salvo was fired with a statement from the NCC which read: “The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), in exercise of its regulatory functions as provided for by the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003, wishes to inform the general public and all the relevant stakeholders that arrangements have been concluded for the commencement of registration of all SIM card holders in Nigeria,” adding that with effect from March 1, 2010, all new SIM cards in Nigeria must be registered before activation. The commission set the provision of epassports, corporate/company or work place identity cards that has pension identification /tax numbers, student ID cards from recognised institutions, drivers’ licence issued by the Federal Road Safety Commission ( FRSC) and e-tax cards as prerequisites for registration. It said further that the process will include the capture of the photograph and biometrics of the subscriber, adding that “proxy registration shall be restricted to the direct families of persons seeking registration.” Ndukwe said registering SIM cards was necessary to prevent the harassment many Nigerians have undergone in recent years, due to individuals who use mobile phones to perpetrate crimes. He stressed the need for public awareness. “NCC should also work hand in hand with the National Identity Card Management Commission (NIMC) in order to ensure the success of this programme since it is widely known that there is absence of an authentic identity data in Nigeria. The success of the SIM registration process will one
Operator Airtel MTN Etisalat Globacom
Trouble shooting code *746# REG to 746 Not available Not available
•SIMs used in modems for browsing must also be registered.
way or the other assist in the proposed implementation of Mobile Number Portability which is under way,” he added. In line with the suggestion of the Ndukwe, sources close to NIMC said officials of the NCC consulted it widely and a number of recommendations were made which were later jettisoned. One of such recommendations was the capture of all the finger prints of the SIM card holder. NCC settled for three while the recommendations on photo capture were also largely ignored as any object now serves as background if the picture was ever captured. But, in spite of the imperfection, the exercise continued until the NCC placed June 30 as the timeline to end it. All old SIMs not registered would be disconnected from the network. Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) chairman Gbenga Adebayo disagrees with the NCC. According to him, there has been a significant disruption to the lives of people in certain parts of the country. Some of the affected persons are subscribers who may have been displaced as a result of the problems. To this end, he is not comfortable with the timeline. “Given the reality of what we face, you know we have had significant disruption in the activities in some parts of the country and which has also affected the movement of persons and businesses. So, certain circumstances the last three or four months haven’t helped the situation as it were. Therefore, as at today, we are not 100 per cent ready for the exercise to end. What the
‘So, for me, before we say unregistered subscribers should be disconnected, we should embark on data clean up where there will be integration of data registered by the operators and those registered by the regulator. After the outcome of that, we can take a decision either to disconnect or not’
NCC should do is to provide a direction of the data base it has registered. Recall that we did some parts and NCC also did some parts, so if NCC is putting the deadline of June 30, it should give a declaration of the readiness or integrity of the data it has recorded over the period before putting a blanket disconnection order on service providers. “So, for me, before we say unregistered subscribers should be disconnected, we should embark on data clean up where there will be integration of data registered by the operators and those registered by the regulator. After the outcome of that, we can take a decision either to disconnect or not. But, as it is today, it will appear that the NCC is sitting on its own data; no one knows the integrity of the data it has collated. We haven’t harmonised the data collated so far. I think there is need to revisit the June 30 deadline again,” Adebayo said. But the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) differs. It argues that the NCC has given more than enough time for the exercise. Deolu Ogunbanjo, its president, said the regulator has given a total of 21 months for the exercise. According to him, when the NCC said the exercise will run for six months, ALTON requested for nine months while NATCOMS asked for 12 months. While the former’s request lapsed last year September, the latter’s expired May. “So, after all these, we have got more than we asked for. So, the June 30 deadline is in order. Let the regulator disconnect any line not registered after the timeline,” he said. Corporate Services Executive, MTN, Akinwale Goodluck, said the telco was working towards meeting the deadline. He said the telco had invested massively on personnel and tools to ensure a hitch-free exercise. He added that leveraging on MTN’s experience in other countries where it operates, it has ensured the success of the exercise in the country by investing in tools. On the integrity of the data gathered, he said it may not be 100 per cent foolproof but, for the first time, the country was getting data that could aid security and national planning. Aside the agents that cut corners during the exercise, the operators who did were fined N53.8 million. All the four mobile telecommunication operators contravened the rules on registration of SIM. They were accused of pre-registering SIMs for sale contrary to the rules set by the regulator.