Telecom consumers under the aegis of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers have requested the Federal Government to extend the National Identification Number and Subscriber Identity Module linkage policy deadline by three months.
A large number of subscribers trying to link their SIM-NIN together were left frustrated on Wednesday as heavy traffic on telecom networks slowed down the process.
This is after the Federal Government through telecom companies barred Nigerians who had not linked their SIMs and NINs together from making calls
Check out Magazine had reported on Monday that the Federal Government had directed telecom companies to block outgoing calls on all unlinked lines after the deadline for the SIM-NIN verification exercise expired on March 31.
The move was aimed at enforcing compliance.
According to the President of the association, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, telecom service centers are likely to continue to witness an increase in human traffic if the Federal Government doesn’t consider extending the implementation of the SIM-NIN policy by three months.
Ogunbanjo stated, “I was at the service centers today and they were jampacked. All the network operating centers were jam-packed.
“People were complaining about their inability to make outgoing calls. The implementation of the SIM-NIN is a problem. Again, NIMC doesn’t have the required capacity to process large volumes of data.
“The rush is serious. The (enrolment) centers were all complaining about the slow pace of the linking process. The crowd is growing and there is little they can do in one day because the network is slow now. This is unfortunate. We are pushing for at least another three-month extension.
“Now that they have at least implemented the policy, Nigerians now know why they cannot make calls if they do not link their SIMs. No more ongoing calls. It is time for the government to draw back and extend the deadline by another three months and finally implement.”
