Today is the last day for SIM registration in Nigeria and I wonder whether the telcos will truly start disconnection of unregistered SIM cards as from 1st of July.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) started the SIM registration exercise in March 2011 and planned to end it in September 2011 but was unable to stand by the six months period it gave because several subscribers were left unregistered after the six months period. The situation forced NCC to extend the registration exercise indefinitely.
The objectives of SIM registration, as directed by NCC, are as follows:
- To assist security agencies in resolving crimes and by extension to enhance the security of the state.
- To facilitate the collation of data by the Commission about phone usage in Nigeria.
- To enable operators to have a predictable profile about the users in their networks.
- To enable the commission to effectively implement other value added services like Number Portability among others.