As monitored by The Guardian last week into the weekend, several registration outlets were besieged by subscribers, who spent between two and five hours to get attended to or asked to come the next day.
As of yesterday, a senior official in one of the telecoms firms, who spoke with The Guardian, said millions of telephone lines would be cut off by Wednesday.
“I may not be able to give exact figures now because of the sensitivity of the matter, but as painful as it is, millions of lines would be barred from making and receiving calls from February 28. We have verified about three million since the directive was given last December.
But we discovered that millions of lines on the network are still defective, and such lines have between now and Wednesday to rectify such. All our outlets are working, so also our online channels too. We will try our best on these lines because cutting off a customer amounts to losing money, and that doesn’t pay,” he stated.
Already, Airtel Nigeria, in its nine-month financial statement released in January disclosed that 9.2 million customers have submitted their NINs, adding that 4.5 million of them have been verified.
Though, in a form of appeal, 9mobile has issued a disconnection warning to affected subscribers on its network to urgently do the needful.
The firm, in a statement, warned that customers, who do not comply with the directive, would not access Internet, SMS, One Time Password (OTP) and bank alerts.
Its Director of Customer Care, Ehimare Omoike, confirmed that more than 35 per cent of subscribers are yet to be linked.
Going by the statistics, our checks showed that there were 224 million connected lines as at last December when the directive was issued, meaning that some 78 million telephone lines have issues in the country.
However, some lines must have been rectified and NINs linked, as subscribers have since December been visiting telecoms outlets for corrections.
Ehimare added: “Your line will be disconnected when you do not link your SIM to your National Identity Number (NIN). The implication here is that as a subscriber on 9mobile network, you will be completely shut out from access to the virtual world, and you will be greatly inconvenienced. We, therefore, urge all our valued subscribers to endeavour to link their mobile lines with their NIN before February 28, 2024 to keep enjoying endless and seamless value offerings that enhance their lifestyle from 9mobile.”
