The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it has deactivated more than two million improperly registered SIMs across mobile networks in Nigeria.

“By our records, all improperly registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards across Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s) in Nigeria have been completely deactivated,” Executive Vice Chairman of the commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, said in a statement.

“Our efforts received a boost, following the implementation of a September 12, 2019 ministerial directive that the NCC should compel service providers to block all improperly-registered sim cards, pending when their owners regularise their registration,” he said.

“As at the time the ministerial order was issued, the commission, through its compliance monitoring and enforcement team, had reduced the number of improperly registered sim cards on mobile networks in the country to 9.2 million.

“As part of the commission’s ongoing regulatory interventions such as the setting up of the sim registration industry task force, which led to several resolutions including the Industry Working Group (IWG) on harmonisation of sim registration process with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure a clean sim database, the commission had, in June 2019, commenced the second round of comprehensive verification audit of MNO’s sim card registrations.”

According to Danbatta, this audit exercise was concluded in August 2019.

“We have since initiated the second phase of sim deactivation based on the ministerial directive and as at today, we have completely deactivated the remaining 2.2 million lines on the networks. This is contrary to reports by a section of the media, suggesting that nothing has been done with respect to the issue of improperly-registered sim cards,” he said.