Subterfuge, Sabotage Hobble N6.1Bn Sim Card Project

The integrity of the N6.1 billion Sim card registration project embarked upon by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) may have been compromised by some elements within and outside the NCC, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations have shown.

The NCC has refused to comment on the allegations that confidential information of subscribers so far captured are in the hands of some politicians; organizations both public and private that have no prior dealings with the subscribers.

Also the synchronisation and integration of the data of registered subscribers still pose serious challenges despite the billions of naira voted for the exercise.

A senior official of a telecom firm who did not want to be named because of fears of victimization by the NCC said that most operators still do not have access to NCC’s data base.

Most of operators are therefore not able to pass their data to the regulator because of the problems of handshake.

Already, the legion of challenges facing the exercise are weighing down heavily on the touted objectives of the Sim card registration project which is to fight criminal activities perpetrated through phones.

Nigerian CommunicationsWeek investigations also showed that some operators have lost captured data and are compelling their subscribers to register afresh.

Elsewhere, some sellers of Sim card and some telecom product dealers have continued to circulate preregistered Sim cards.

Such preregistered Sim cards are widely available at Oshodi, Lagos, Wuse 11, Abuja for as low as N300 per Sim card.

When contacted for his comments on Wednesday last week, Tony Ojobo, director, Public Affairs at Nigerian Communications Commission promised to get back to one of our reporters.

Ojobo never did and did not reply inquiries sent by email to him by one of our correspondents regarding the Sim card registration project.

He did not also return several calls.

But the NCC had last year at the presentation of the Sim Card registration study undertaken by the Joint Action for IT Awareness and Development (JACITAD) said that all improper registration will be exposed during data scrubbing.

This is in a bid to safeguard against multiple and possible improper registration.

NCC said that operators would be directed to partially deactivate the Sims (on receive only) to enable the ‘owners’ of such numbers (if they exist) to update their records and thereafter deactivate the lines if there are no responses from the users.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the Sim card registration project which began on March 28, 2011 has been bugged by web of controversies.

Some people have also accused the NCC of misappropriating the N6.1billion earmarked for the project, leading to the probe of the project by the National Assembly last year.

Critics of the Sim card registration project have questioned the huge budgetary provision for the exercise when similar exercise was conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) without any special budget.

It would be recalled that late last year, the NCC itself raised the alarm that the registration exercise meant to furnish the commission with bio-data of telephone subscribers in the country is being sabotaged by some Nigerians.

Mr . Efosa Idehen an official of the commission at a press conference, held at the NCC office, Bodija, Ibadan, said that: “it is no longer news that some people are into the sales of fully activated SIM cards and this is not supposed to be.

There is a clique between the agents and the hawkers. This is why we are dealing with the supply chain.

“We are hereby sending a message to those involved that this is a sensitive process to the Federal Government. We want to know the total number of people using SIM cards and those using two, three phones or more and why? We are really serious about it.”