Over 75 Million Unlinked SIM Cards have been Blocked by Nigerian Mobile Carriers in the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) linkage exercise as they enforce the government order following the recent kidnapping and killings that occurred along the Abuja-Kaduna rail track among other recent security breaches along that axis and Kaduna state in particular.
To this end, every unlinked Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card without the National Identification Number (NIN) will be barred from use on Nigerian telecom networks in response to the Federal Government’s directive.
Ongoing calls to unlinked SIM cards have been barred by the Federal Government through the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
President Muhammadu Buhari ordered in December 2020 that all phone lines in Nigeria be linked to a unique identification number in an effort to curb the number of kidnappings that occur.
Read Also : Hackers Send Fake, Data Breaches Notifications To Trezor Users
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has sent a letter to some telecom providers, and they have subsequently started banning outgoing calls from any unlinked SIMs on their network.
The Kidnapping Crisis in Nigeria
Despite Buhari’s plan to link phone lines, terrorist attacks and kidnappings have reportedly increased in the West African country.
The families of kidnapped victims are contacted by kidnappers who utilize unregistered SIM cards. 75 million Sims will no longer be able to make calls because of the new order.
There has been no official or anyone who has the legal authority to request bio-data and other information about NIN-SIM for a rescue mission since the government began sanitizing its database, according to Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy.
This has been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari without any of our involvement as a ministry. As a result, the National Council on Competitiveness (NCC) has informed all relevant institutions that Mr. President has given his permission. As a result, Pantami stated, “They can obtain databases even if they don’t have our authorization.”
Security agents haven’t complained or come to me once to demand information from the database since then, but that hasn’t stopped them.” A letter from the Minister of Defense requesting that we conclude the NIN-SIM exercise on time was his only correspondence.