MTN shuts down offices nationwide

MTN Nigeria has announced the closure of all it’s offices across the country from Tuesday, July 30, 2024.

The network service provider said this in a statement on its customer support X handle.

“Yello customer, please be informed that our shops nationwide will be closed today, 30th July 2024.”

MTN, however, directed its customers to use their digital channels for support.

MTN did not mention the reason for the closure but it may not be unconnected incidents of vandalisation of some of its offices by aggrieved customers on Monday.

The telecommunication company barred many customers from making or receiving calls over the linkage of their national identification numbers (NINs) with the subscriber identity module (SIM) cards.

The offices of other telecommunication firms in Oyo, FCT, and Kano were also attacked by subscribers.

However, while the vandalism continued, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) ordered telecommunication operators to temporarily reconnect all phone lines that were blocked as part of the NIN-SIM verification exercise.

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The NIN-SIM linkage policy kicked off in December 2020 when the federal government directed telecommunication companies to bar unregistered SIM cards and SIMs not linked to NINs.

Since December 2023, the NCC has reviewed the deadline a few times, but April 15, 2024, was set as the deadline for the full network barring of subscribers with four or fewer SIMs that had unverified NIN details.

The deadline, however, was later reviewed to July 31, 2024, to give consumers enough time to ensure their submitted NIN details are properly verified.