Following the federal government’s directive, telecommunication companies in Nigeria such as MTN, Airtel, GLO and 9mobile have barred over 70 million subscribers from making calls over failure to link their SIM with the National Identity Number (NIN).
However, emerging developments indicate that some Nigerians who have linked their SIM with their NIN are also having difficulty making calls.
Some mobile users have said after linking their SIM to NIN, they did not get any response on whether the process is successful or not. Some also said they got responses that the linking was successful but their SIMs remain barred from outgoing calls.
According to BBC News Pidgin, a senior official working with one of the telcos listed the reasons while subscribers may be having such challenges.
These are:
Incomplete registration
Computer errors
Linking NIN to too many SIM cards
Poor backend integration from NIMC
Network problem
What to do if your SIM cards remain barred after linking with NIN
The unnamed telco official according to BBC said affected subscribers can go to the officers of the telecommunication companies/service centres to register their complaints.
He said telcos do not want subscribers’ SIM cards blocked because it also leads to loss of revenue for them, adding that they need as many customers as possible.
The head of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in Kano also reportedly confirmed what telcos official said. He was quoted as directing affected subscribers to the telecom companies’ officers to complain.
According to him, the telecom companies will give them letters to take to NIMC while the commission’s database team will take it up from there and correct the error.
