Poor Services: 2.5m Mobile Subscribers Swap SIMs

No fewer than 2,559,745 subscribers, out of the 222,571,568 active voice subscriptions, engaged in porting activities across the various mobile GSM networks from May 2013 to December 2022, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) 2022 report has revealed.

The 2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report highlighted porting activities in the country across the various Mobile GSM networks (MTN, Glo, Airtel and 9mobile) from May 2013 to December 2022.

The report revealed that 9mobile had the highest number with 676,944 subscribers, followed by Airtel with 331,837 subscribers. then Glo with 105,746 subscribers and MTN with 181,301 subscribers.

Similarly, the analysis from May 2013 to December 2022 revealed that MTN had the highest number of subscribers (444,226) that ported out to other networks while Airtel, Glo and 9mobile recorded 351,422; 277,527 and 190,742 respectively.

LEADERSHIP recalls that in 2020, the federal government lifted the suspension order on replacement and activation of old Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards and in 2021 it gave approval to Mobile Network Operators, MNOs, for the establishment of dedicated SIM Swap Centres across the 774 local government areas (LGAs) in Nigeria and approved the extension of the tenure of NIN enrolment agent licenes for MNOs from one to five years in consideration of their satisfactory performance, subject to continuous monitoring.

The federal government therefore ordered MNOs that already had service centres in important and critical locations in LGAs to upgrade these centres to a level where they can qualify as SIM Swap Centres in order to reduce the challenges associated with the SIM Swap/Replacement process for the citizens. The purpose was to bring SIM Swap Centres closer to Nigerians regardless of their locations.

With all these in place, the commission, however, attributed the increase in port-in activities mainly to the effect of the directive from the federal government in April 2021 to all GSM Operators lifting the ban on the sale and registration of new SIMs, SIM swaps and all porting activities following the conclusion of the commissions nationwide audit of Subscriber Registration Database.

Meanwhile, SIM-SWAP agents have also attributed the surge of port-in and port-out to the new structure at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), as one of the requirements is the provision of virtual National Identification Number (VNIN) or NIN.

“Most of the people that visit our office for SIM-SWAP are people who already have NIN. All we need to do is to confirm that their NIN is uploaded on NIMC database and the remaining process is seamless,” an agent who spoke anonymously told LEADERSHIP.