Selling pre-registered SIM cards illegal, NCC says

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has warned Nigerians against selling preregistered SIM cards as doing is illegal. The Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, who gave the warning in an interview, said it is an act of illegality that undermines national security. “SIM card registration is key to addressing national security and we must address it as such. Nigerians must stop selling preregistered SIM cards because it is an act of illegality that undermines national security”, Prof Danbatta said.

The SIM card registration has been concluded and the data uploaded into our dedicated database, he added. He said: “Whatever is uploaded on SIM card registration into our database is still considered as raw data until treated as real data. “There is a software that treats it and ascertain the credibility of the data. If after we apply the software, we identify anomalies, then we must impute the data again or send them back for proper registration.” On consumer protection campaign of the commission, he said “We have great plans for  consumer empowerment, hence its part of our 8-point Agenda.

We went ahead to declare 2017 as the year of the consumer, because everybody in the country is consumer of telecommunication services, including myself. “Nigerians welcomed the initiative and majority were able to activate the 2442 short code for Do Not Disturb (DND) initiative, designed to protect the consumers from unsolicited text messages, which was becoming an issue in the telecoms industry. From a little above one million activated DND, it has gone beyond 10 million since 2017. With the activation of the DND short code, Nigerian consumers have powers in their hands to receive or reject messages. “They can now reject messages they do not want and accept messages that they want.

The number of complains from subscribers have reduced because the NCC is responding fast to consumers’ concerns. Beyond that, NCC still engage consumers through the NCC organised consumer parliament and town hall meetings.” HE also denied that the NCC was covering MTN Nigeria to cheat on its staff. “In the case of the NLC accusing us of aligning with MTN to short-change the country, it is not true. The NCC has not aligned with MTN in any way to shortchange the country. We have a duty to protect telecommunications investment and telecommunications jobs in the country and we are already engaging the NLC on this. NCC will not in anyway stop Nigerian workers from belonging to workers’ union”, he said.