Essential Ndubuisi
Thousands of telecommunication subscribers nationwide seeking to retrieve their lost Subscriber Identity Module cards or acquire new lines temporarily have been left stranded, following a technical glitch in the National Identity Management Commission portal that has grounded SIM-related services.
The affected NIMC portal enables telecom firms, the Nigerian Immigration Service, banks and other organisations to verify the National Identity Number of their customers before attending to them, in line with the Federal Government’s directive.
Following the directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission for the inclusion of NIN in the requirements for all new and existing SIM cards, telecom firms are required to synchronise their SIM registration portals with the NIMC portal in order to verify the details of their subscribers.
As the problem lingered, it was gathered that the NIMC officials held a meeting with telcos and other stakeholders over the development.
It was learnt that NIMC advised telcos to temporarily revert to the vNIN platform until it is able to sort out its technical difficulties.
A top official privy to the development said, “NIMC confirms its service is still down and it doesn’t have an estimated turnaround time from its service provider. Hence, it is looking for alternatives to restore services over the weekend. However, NIMC has proposed that we use vNIN in the interim which the industry kicked against based on technical readiness and process issues.”
However, the meeting held with NIMC resolved that telcos must uphold certain rules while the glitch lingers.
It said, “New registration and SIM swap without a prior verified NIN and linked to our Know Your Customer will not be allowed until full service is restored.
“SIM swap for a previously verified NIN that has been linked to our (telcoms) Know Your Customer will be allowed to proceed based on when approval letter is received from NCC today (Friday).
“New SIM registration (additional SIM for an existing subscriber with a previously verified NIN and linked to our (telcoms) Know Your Customer) will be allowed to proceed based on when approval letter is received from NCC today (Friday).”
As of the time of filing this report, it could not be verified if the approval has been received or not.
According to some telcos’ officials, there is a feeling of discontent among operators due to the technical readiness and bottlenecks that would be required to make the temporary switch to the vNIN.
