In this piece of Telecom Clinic, REMMY NWEKE brings to the fore the travails of local dwellers in Nigeria, especially in South East, who wish to have telecom access despite weird interpretations of guidelines on linking NIN to SIM.
Primer:
Iyom Achala Ugo is a local rice farmer from Awba-Ofemili, a town about 30 kilometres from Awka the capital of Anambra State. She was privileged to have been using the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications at least since 2010. Iyom or Otu-Odu is the most revered and coveted society for women in the southeastern part of Nigeria. The Iyom title is a women-only.
So soon after the December 9, 2020 order received by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) from the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy (MoCDE), Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), to suspend sales of new Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards in the country, Iyom began to notice that she was unable to receive calls on her mobile line.
This led to her being taken to Awka, the Anambra State
capital to find out what was the issue when her children returned home for
Christmas break. First surprise was that her line has been tossed and in fact was reissued to another person in recent weeks following purported inactivity which was greatly opposed because there is no month she does not receive some airtime and calls from her children, at least every fortnight and efforts to retrieve the line
proved abortive despite it being her only line, funded and made active by her
children.
No new SIM until
…
According to the customer service supervisor at one of
the operators, Airtel precisely, she must get the National Identification Number
(NIN) to be able to get a new SIM following the December 15 directive to Mobile
Network Operators to link SIM with NIN.
The supervisor identified as Ms Uche (not real name) said
they do not offer such a NIN service in Awka office except at the Local Government Secretariat
nearby or you visit the state office of the National Identity Management
Commission (NIMC) at Enugwu-Ukwu.
Iyom has other means of identification including the
voters card which was used in 2019 elections, but these cannot suffice for NIN according to customer service staff.
In the company of her son who returned from Abuja and
wanted to sort this out before leaving, both headed to the secretariat
thereafter only to be told that workers were on industry strike and should
listen to the radio and news to know when to return when work starts or check
back in two weeks.
She preferred to check back in two weeks later due to lack of constant electricity in the town to tune radio and listen or television set for news; she was accompanied by her grandson this time to Awka for NIN registration after which they planned to buy a SIM. On getting to the Secretariat they were informed the workers in-charge of NIN registration were on strike for unremitted allowances owe them over a period of time and should check the NIMC state headquarters at Enugwu-Ukwu, so they headed to Enugwu-Ukwu.
@NIMC head
office:
At the state NIMC headquarters they were told that
capturing has since stopped due to power or technical failure and should return
two weeks later to know how far. She beheld long queue of residents who claimed
were captured two weeks back but yet to get their papers, which is evidence of
NIN registration.
So, again two weeks later Iyom was on the road to Awka
with her grandson and were told strike has not ended. Yet two months later when
the strike was over, was then the Easter preparation commenced.
As a farmer, immediately after Easter is the period to
clear grass or bush for your next rice or farming season, hence Iyom has
remained incommunicado ever since pending when she finished that initial
farming phase. This took another three to four months coupled with local
community activities that demand physical presence of an individual.
Just last September, she went to Awka again enroute to
Enugwu-Ukwu for her NIN on the insistence of the son in Abuja who encouraged
her to get it sorted by sending her all the supports considering the way NCC is
going about the SIM and NIN linkage. Although the children have stop sending
her any fiscal support directly and prefer to use a payout agent at nearby
town, Ugbenu for her upkeeps.
This is despite suggestions by other siblings that
anyone should simply buy SIM for mom and the question, the Abuja-based son has
been asking is “what happens when she takes the SIM for financial transactions,
especially linking it to her bank services’ arguing that its better to get the
right thing done than cutting corners and being entangled in the process which
could cost double when effort is repeated sooner than later.
NCC prediction
comes through:
Like predicting the government especially NCC next
moves, the Abuja-based son of Iyom stood his ground despite the argument that
followed. And on October 19, the Commission warned telecoms consumers
not to allow their NIN to be linked to another person’s SIM cards, no matter
how close the person is to them. As said by the Director, Consumer
Affairs Bureau, NCC, Mr. Efosa Idehen, “On no account should a telecom
consumer, however circumstanced, allow another person to register a SIM with another person’s NIN.”
Speaking at the third run of Telecom Consumer Town Hall on Radio
(TCTHR) programme, broadcast live on Human Rights Radio, 101.1 FM in Abuja, Idehen
said compliance with this advice will protect the true owner of the NIN from
any liabilities or negative consequences arising from the use of other person's
SIM. “If the person, whose SIM is linked to your line use his own SIM to commit
crimes or any form of atrocities, it is easy to be traced to you and then, you
will be dealt with because the SIM is linked to your NIN”, he insisted.
However after adhering to the nuisances of getting NIN customer
copy on last Tuesday after the Sit-At-Home on Mondays, Iyom could still not get
her new SIM as the MNO office she went to in Awka told her the paper must be
used after one month and so she went back to the village despite all the bad
road at Amansea, Ebenebe, Ugbene, Ugbenu, Awba-Ofemili road without her
anticipated new SIM.
ITREALMS gathered that as at the last weekend, the Abuja-based
son was still pleading with her to endure it once more and get ready to visit
Awka yet again before end of November for new SIM, notwithstanding that the
last information from her mobile operator sounded weird and discouraging to say
the least, which should have costed the operator the customer if the son in
Abuja was alerted before she embarked on her return journey from Awka to their
town.
Summary:
Thanks to Iyom's Abuja-based son, she has since lost hope in the
efficacy of telecommunications as a means of bettering her life at over 70
years and being forced to took the steps outlined above comes with a special
grace and support of wherewithal, mostly for someone who would not like to cut
corners.
Following due process is an arduous task in most public
institutions in Nigeria and becomes double tragedy in places like outside
Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt where MNOs often classified as having a given
service nationwide whereas it only operational and accessible in these three
cities.
NCC should as matter of fact deploy a means of checking the
excesses of MNOs customer services beyond the three aforementioned cities.
On the other hand, MNOs, should as matter of fact stop
misleading information on their service offering and let alone deliveries in
the state capitals, moreso, in the eastern part of the country where services
are now being disrupted due to sit-at-home pending its stoppage eventually.
Finally, the extension of telecommunications services to the likes of towns in the axis of Amansea-Ebenebe-Ugbne-Ugbenu-Awba-Ofemili road deserves special attention through the use of Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).
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