SIM barring has nothing to do with planned protest – Telcos

Telecommunications operators have clarified that the recent barring of some subscribers’ lines is unrelated to the planned national protest set to begin on Thursday.

In recent days, millions of subscribers’ lines have been barred, leading to suspicions that this was a government effort to suppress the protest.

However, the telcos have stated that this development is not connected to the protest.

“The attention of the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has been drawn to some online reports linking the ongoing subscriber line barring exercise with the planned national protest,” ALTON said in a Monday statement by its chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, and secretary, Gbolahan Awonuga.

“There’s absolutely no connection between the two. The NIN/SIM link registration deadline was set for July 31, 2024. The fact of the matter is that the harmonization exercise of the SIM Registration database and National Identity Database has been ongoing for several months. This is aimed at improving the integrity of the National SIM registration database. Customers who had their lines blocked recently are those whose service providers found a mismatch between their records on both databases.”