The Federal Government has directed telecom companies, Tuesday, to bar the lines of some telecommunication subscribers from making calls.
The Federal Government had on Monday directed telecom companies to enforce compliance with its National Identification Number-Subscriber Identity Module policy by blocking outgoing calls on all unlinked lines after the deadline for the SIM-NIN verification expired on March 31.
The Nigerian Communications Commission stated that there were 197.77 million active telecom subscribers as of February 2022.
This means that over 72.77 million active telecom subscribers will be affected by the government directive after the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria confirmed that its members would comply with the directive.
In a statement, Monday, it stated, “ALTON members are committed to complying with the instructions and call on telecommunication subscribers who have not obtained and/or linked a NIN to their SIMs, to do so at any of the designated centres.”
On Tuesday, many subscribers woke up to an inability to make calls on their lines.
The NIGERIAN OBSERVER learnt that some subscribers have started visiting telecom service centres in multitudes to link their NIN to their SIMs.
At the Glo centre in Benin City, representatives of the company were seen trying to help subscribers link their SIMs despite a server downtime.
According to a subscriber, “I woke up and I couldn’t make calls”.
“I have tried to link my SIM to my NIN with the code, but it is not going through.”
The President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said people were rushing to the centres because of the commercial undertone of the ban
He said, “Here we are, if you do not do it, you can only receive calls. They should please not suffer subscribers any further.
