By Adedapo Adesanya
The suspension earlier place on the activation/registration of new SIM card in the country has been lifted by the Nigerian government.
The lifting of the suspension was announced by the federal government on Thursday. However, it stressed that the registration must be in compliance with guidelines from Monday, April 19, 2021.
The central government suspended the activation of new SIM cards by GSM network providers in December 2020 as it embarked on an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, which announced the lifting of the embargo in a statement signed by Mr Femi Ademiluyi, a technical aide to the Minister, Mr Isa Pantami, said the latest development was in line with the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003, Section 23(a), which specifies the role of the Minister to include the formulation, determination and monitoring of the general policy for the communications sector.
On the Subscriber Registration Database, Mr Pantami, on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari, coordinated and led the development of a Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration in collaboration with all other stakeholders.
An earlier policy was approved on February 4, 2020, while the Revised Policy was developed in early March 2021.
In the statement, Mr Adeluyi noted that final amendments to the revised policy based on the directives of Mr President to make the use of NIN mandatory for all SIM registration were completed On Tuesday, April 14, 2021.
Prior to that, the key aspects of the draft Policy were presented to the stakeholders at the 4th Review Meeting of the Ministerial Task Force (MTF) on the NIN-SIM registration which held on Friday, February 26, 2021.
Key stakeholders and members of the MTF who joined the Honourable Minister at the meeting included the EVC/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), DG/CEO of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), DG/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON). Others included the NCC Executive Commissioners for Technical Services and Stakeholder Management, MD/CEOs of MTN, Airtel, EMTS (9Mobile), NTEL, Spectranet and SMILE, as well as the COO of Glo.
The statement also noted that Mr Pantami also presented the revised policy to Mr Buhari on Friday, March 26 2021.
“Mr President made further improvements and endorsed it for implementation. Mr President also commended the Honourable Minister for his commitment in carrying out the responsibility of developing the digital economy sector, including championing the NIN-SIM registration process.
“The policy includes guidelines on new sIM acquisition and activation, SIM replacement, new SIM activation for corporates and Internet-of-Things/Machine-to-Machine (IoT/M2M), amongst others. The possession of a national identity number will be a prerequisite for each of these categories.
“For the corporate registration, institutions will be required to appoint a Telecoms Master (at the minimum of an executive management level) to provide the operational primary NIN representation. The telecoms master will also be responsible for ensuring that the users provide their NINs to serve as a secondary NIN”, the statement read.
“For IoT/M2M activations, SIM security protocols would be implemented on the SIM profile to ensure that SIMs can only be used for point to point data services specific to the URL they are working with. All other services will be barred.
“In the event that a data-only service is particular to individual use (eg home car tracking, WiFi, MiFi services, etc), the standard NIN registration process will be followed. A telecoms master will also be required for Corporates requiring IoT/M2M activations. The full details of the requirements for each class of service will be made available in due course.
“Significant progress has been made in the NIN registration process across the country. Nonetheless, the federal government is committed to supporting all Nigerians and legal residents to obtain a NIN.
“The biometric verification process has been slower than anticipated, owing largely to the non-adherence of many previous SIM biometric capture processes to the NIMC standards. The revised policy will ensure that operators conform to the required standards for biometric capture.
“The guidelines in the policy have been painstakingly developed and while they are thorough, it should be noted that they have been developed that way in National interest since the SIM is essentially a national resource. Citizens and legal residents are encouraged to bear with the government as the process has been developed in the best interest of the country”, he said.
“The Minister has also directed NCC and NIMC to ensure that the provisions of the policy are strictly followed by all operators and subscribers.
“Dr Pantami wishes to thank Nigerians for their patience and compliance with the federal government’s directive on the NIN-SIM registration exercise”.
“He reiterated government’s commitment to continue taking decisions aimed at easing the pains of the citizens with regard to issues related to NIN and SIM registration”, the statement concluded.
Aduragbemi Omiyale