It was bound to happen sooner than later: phone lines whose users are yet to have their Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards linked with their unique National Identification Number (NIN) have been partially tossed. The partial deactivation of the lines took effect last Monday to implement a policy unveiled by government in December 2000.

In a joint statement, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the  National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) announced that subscribers who had not complied with the NIN-SIM linkage policy as of April 4 were being barred from outgoing calls and must do the needful before telecom operators could lift the restriction on their lines. It was not categorically stated, but the implication of the partial deactivation was that concerned subscribers yet had a leeway to receive calls, use short message services and access online platforms for the time being. According to the regulatory bodies, since December 2020 when the policy was rolled out, holders of over 125million SIMs have submitted their NIN for linkage, verification and authentication. “Similarly, (NIMC) has issued over 78million unique NINs till date,” their joint statement added. The NCC had in February published data showing that there were some 303.6million mobile lines connected in the country, out of which about 197.77 were active. With subscribers of 125million active lines having submitted their NIN for linkage to SIM cards, there were about 72.7million lines affected by Monday’s partial deactivation.

The Federal Government had initiated the NIN-SIM linkage policy as part of measures to bolster security and logistical planning. “The implementation impacts on government’s strategic planning, particularly in the areas of security and socio-economic projections,” the joint statement said. The regulatory bodies noted, however, that deadlines for policy implementation had been serially extended by government to allow Nigerians to freely comply, based on appeals by telecoms operators, civil society organisations and professional bodies, among others. Monday’s partial deactivation of non-compliant lines marked the exhaustion of the grace period and government’s limit of patience.

There is no question that the NIN-SIM linkage policy is warranted, considering the acute insecurity hobbling the country. It is also an attitudinal challenge in the polity that Nigerians dally on compliance with policy measures until the last hours of grace period when there is typically a massive rush that imposes undue pressure on the processes of an implementing agency, like the NIMC. For NIN registration by Nigerian citizens and legal residents, the NIMC hasn’t been spared this avoidable pressure; but it is worrying also that the agency has not responded to pressure with capacity enhancement as it should. At best, the processes of the NIMC have been wonky and there are a good number Nigerians out there who have made genuine efforts to secure NIN but have been frustrated from doing so by the agency’s operational hurdles, especially as NIN has become a criterion for accessing services by telcos, banks, the Passport Office, the drivers licensing office and several other government services. For instance, the least that is expected in view of pressured turnout by prospective NIN registrants is that NIMC’s customer interface channels would be active and easily accessible to the public for prompt redress of complaints. As we speak, those channels advertised on NIMC website are inactive and the agency is hardly accessible to the public.

There is as well the challenge of backend integration between the data agency and telcos. Following the recent deadly attack by terrorists on an Abuja-Kaduna rail service, the Nigerian Railway Corporation has said no fewer than 60 phone lines indicated on the passenger manifest were found to be non-existent, while terrorists manage to reach the relations of their hostages on other lines. Besides, some subscribers duly submitted their NIN to telcos for linkage to their SIM, but were yet partially deactivated last Monday because linkage failed to occur. These are lapses to be tidied up if government would be taken serious on this policy.