According to the Nigerian Communications Commission, over 40 million telephone lines that have been banned due to failure to link to National Identity Numbers face forfeiture soon.
Reuben Mouka, NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, confirmed this to Newsmen in an interview on Tuesday.
According to him, the telephone lines banned by their telecommunication operators violated the commission’s February 28, 2024 deadline for telecom consumers to link their Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) to their NIN.
He stated, “If the barred lines are not acted upon within the next 180 days.” They will be unable to accept calls and will instead be able to text and make calls. However, after the specified number of days, they will also be prevented from making calls. And may surrender their lines to their respective service provider within 365 days.”
“People whose lines are closed must register for a NIN if they do not already have one at any of the registered facilities. They can then take the number to their network provider and have it restored.
“The implication of not verifying their numbers will have them forfeited,” he went on to say.
Muoka argued that line retrieval is solely the duty of network providers.
While answering questions about the possibility of taking advantage of the registration of linking at least 28 lines to a NIN, the NCC spokesperson stated that whoever links such SIM that is used to perpetrate evil or crime will be held accountable because their identity will be traced back to the perpetrator.
As a result, he advised against such practices and urged Nigerians to link their NINs before the lines were forfeited.
According to HowNG, the over 40 million blocked lines reflect a 28 million increase over the 12 million telephone lines that telecoms had originally planned to deactivate in response to the NCC decision.
In a December 2023 notice, the NCC requested that telecoms block SIMs that had not been linked to their owners’ NINs by February 28, 2024.
Meanwhile, Muoka ruled out an extension of the deadline, saying that carriers that failed to enforce it would face sanctions.
