TWO days to the deadline set by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), an investigation by The Guardian has revealed that about 27 million Subscribers Identification Modules (SIMs) may be disconnected if they are not registered by June 30. As at Monday, virtually none of the telecommunications operators has confidently recorded 100 per cent compliance from its subscribers on the registration of their SIMs. This is despite various campaigns, advertorials and freebies offered by the service providers to woo subscribers to confirm the status of their SIMs and if not registered, to do so. Besides, despite the continuous drop in the quality of service, subscribers in the country might have spent N444.6 billion through phone calls in the first four months of 2013. Indeed, latest statistics from the NCC revealed that Nigeria, as in the first quarter of the year, has 164
million connected lines with 119 million being active. Ahead of the SIM registration deadline, operators had sent several short message services (SMS) to subscribers to remind them of the deadline, in addition to various telemarketing calls. MTN for instance claimed to have wooed its unregistered subscribers with a gift of free airtime of N400. But going by investigations, virtually all the players,including Airtel, Globacom, Etisalat, even the troubled Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA),
Visafone, Starcomms and Multilinks put together may lose close to 27 million subscribers from their networks.
Findings revealed that while some subscribers are dead, others have relocated. There is also the challenge of inadequate registration agents, especially in the hinterlands. The trouble spots in the country are another challenge to the operators, as they claim lack of access to those areas. Some SIMs have also been damaged and lost. In an MTN Group’s financial report, released from South Africa, the company claimed that its Nigerian arm has recorded about 87 per cent compliance with the SIM card registration, stressing that more efforts and campaigns could still encourage others yet to register to do so.

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