In a move to address insecurity, extortions, and abductions, Nigerian telecom companies heeded the Federal Government's command to ban any SIM card without a national identification number (NIN) on their various networks.
President Muhammadu Buhari ordered that all phone lines in Nigeria be linked to a unique identification number to control abductions in the country. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) sent letters to some operators to start barring outgoing calls from all unlinked SIMs.
In the West African country, there has been an increase in terrorist attacks and kidnappers that use SIMs to call the families of their victims to ask for a ransom, despite Buhari’s solution. Also, 75 million SIMs that are not registered with a proper NIN will not be able to make calls.
Dr. Isa Pantami, minister of communication and digital economy, revealed that since this decision was taken, no one even with the legal power, came and asked the ministry for bio-data with regards to NIN SIM for a rescue mission.
