By Lillian Okenwa
After much hassle to get a not too busy National Identity Number (NIN) registration centre, Phyllis Edward walked into the Abuja office of Etisalat at CEDDI Plaza, Central Business District that afternoon. The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) had graciously positioned a centre at the plaza and in less than an hour, the exercise was completed as there wasn’t much crowd. But, instead of generating her NIN, the young man who attended to her said she already had one! “Madam, this is double registration oooh! You already have a National Identity Number”, he announced. Shocked and knowing that at no time did she ever do the registration and considering the multifarious troubles she had undergone to get registered before learning about this centre, she asked the attendant how that could have happened. After some inquiries, the feedback was that her bank had generated a NIN for her using her Bank Verification Number (BVN).
Phyllis’ case is not peculiar. A number of people have shared similar stories of struggling to get a NIN to avoid their phones being disconnected only to discover they already have one generated by their banks using their BVN. Many Nigerians will recall the drama and high pressure involved with BVN registration in 2015. Several will also recall the widespread relief in December 2020 when days after Federal Government’s announcement that non possession of NIN will occasion disconnection of telephone lines by December 31, 2020 a soothing message began to trend on social media to the effect that NIN could be generated from BVN using a certain code. Not long after, NIMC issued a statement which warned that Bank generated NINs was invalid. The rush to beat the December deadline and the crowd which thronged various registration points amidst Covid-19 brouhaha was unimaginable. At the end of the day, registration was extended over and over again.
Presently, NIN-SIM verification deadline has been moved to October 31 2021. What then was the rush all about? Since NIN could be generated through BVN, why did NIMC discredit it initially? Would it not have made the entire process less tedious and harrowing? Till date a number of NIN registration centres are crowded. It was clear from the outset that it is impossible to register over 200 million Nigerians within the initial two weeks and later one month deadline. Today it has become apparent that with a little more patience on federal government’s part, Nigerians would not have been put through the ordeal of being crowded together in one place at different locations all over the country when the whole world was facing a pandemic and observing the rules of social distancing. The unnecessary risk of lives is incomprehensible; not to talk about the extreme pressure and stress getting the registration done required.
Again, many are still unable to connect the link between registration, disconnection of phone lines and discontinuance of SIM card sales. Though sale of SIM cards has resumed after months of suspension, the process of doing a welcome back for lost or stolen SIMs is still arduous in some telecommunication companies. Worse still is the regime that organisations and groups have to undergo very long procedures to obtain corporate or multiple numbers.
What purpose has this process served? If anything telecom companies have lost more money. Individuals, groups and organisations have been negatively impacted by the entire process. Even more irritating is the fact that government could actually extend this registration to October 2021 as it has presently done. Stephen Azubuike a partner at Infusion Lawyers nailed it. “The sincerely, the way some of our government agencies pilot their affairs and implement their programmes and policies leave much to be desired. On the lips of an average Nigerian, you would hear that the government likes to ‘punish people.’ That seems to be the modus operandi of the government. They seem to always come up with implementation procedures that put the masses under avoidable stress and problems.”
It is noteworthy that as at May 3, 2021, GSM Telcos had lost over N1.1 billion to SIM Card registration ban. Likewise, data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed that between December 2020 and April 2021, Nigeria lost over 15.5 million subscribers.
Inconsistencies
In 2019, the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) directed all retirees under the RSA (Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders) to undergo recapture exercise to link their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and NIN to all their accounts. Then sometime in May 2020, the Director General of NIMC announced that the commission had harmonized about 14 million BVN and the NINs. By December 15, 2020, when the infamous proclamation was made giving Nigerians two weeks to register or lose their telephone lines harried citizens scampered about to beat the December 31, 2020 deadline. What happened to earlier announced harmonisation?
Counting the losses
Technext.ng reported that on examining the financial implication of the ban based on the industry Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of N1,420 for 2020, the 4.2 million subscribers lost between December and January would have contributed a total of about N6 billion to telecom operators in January. ARPU obtained from the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) is defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers. It is a measure used primarily by consumer communications, digital media, and networking companies.
According to Technext.ng: “For the two-month period since the beginning of the ban, the total calculated loss rose above N10 billion. This means that the combined total of 7.6 million subscribers lost between December 2020 and January 2021 adds up to about N10.8 billion in revenue.”
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Telcos lost more subscribers in April after NCC lifted the sim card ban. The continued downward spiral according a report by Technext.ng alluded to the fact that some subscribers could not retrieve their sims even with the ban being lifted. The report pointed out that the new requirements for buying and retrieving sims which include a valid National Identification Number is still a major hindrance for many.
Debisi Araba, former Africa Region Director at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, a public policy and strategy specialist in an article published by The Africa Report observed that “government will have us believe that it is trying to encourage citizen compliance for a process with challenges that are more related to a fundamental lack of harmonisation, scale, capacity and infrastructure than they are to citizen compliance.”
NIN and the legacy of inequality
Speaking on NIN and the legacy of inequality, Araba further posited that: “The existing inequality across the country will amplify the impact of this decision. When the initial two-week deadline was given, my 85 year-old aunt, who can barely walk and spends most of her days making phone calls to her children across the world, panicked and was willing to go into a NIN office for registration, despite the risk due to Covid-19 and her restricted mobility. For her, the possibility of having her two phone lines blocked would not only mean isolation from her family but also reflected the lack of inclusionary approaches when thinking about strategies to enable compliance.
“Beyond the elderly, Nigeria, like much of Africa, has seen a boom in mobile phone penetration and has come to rely on it in everyday life. An example is the driver or the roadside vegetable stall operator in Lagos, whose wife and children live in a rural area in Nigeria, and rely on their remittances and regular phone calls for survival and maintaining social networks. For them, the impact of disconnection will be most severe.”
Nigerians groan over inability to replace lost SIM cards
In the wake of the directive to discontinue sale and replacement of lost SIM cards, many groaned. People who had the misfortune of losing their phones were neither able to retrieve their lines nor purchase a new one. Somebody in some kind of emergency who loses a phone, whose bank account for instance is being tampered with or has been tampered with, cannot call the bank. A visitor to Nigeria that desired to purchase a SIM card would be unable to.
Sometime in February 2021, Dije Mohammad arrived Mararaba late Thursday morning having boarded a night bus from Port Harcourt where she works. Dije was visiting her sister and it was her first visit to Abuja. Though Mararaba a densely populated suburb famed for its high crime rate is in Nasarawa state, many consider it as a part of Abuja since it shares very close borders with the capital city.
Dije’s sister had instructed that once she gets to a particular bus stop, she should call and give the mobile phone to a motorbike rider so that she (Dije’s sister) could give him directions on how to locate her street. Following her sister’s directives, she disembarked at the designated bus stop and was soon approached by one of the numerous the bike riders. Quickly, she called her sister and passed the phone over to a bike man. The next seconds seemed like a movie. The man collected her phone and zoomed off in a blur. Confused and stranded, Dije asked passers-by for the nearest mobile telecoms office hoping to have her SIM replaced. Then she remembered the government’s directive on SIM replacements and purchase.
On the other hand, Sani Hussein was filled frustration and bitterness after an agonising experience at a telco office to replace a lost SIM. After signing a register around 9.00am, he was given card number 48. Up till about 4:30pm, only 26 people had been attended to. It was apparent Hussein would not be attended to on that day.
He left and returned early the next day but still had to wait. When it eventually got to his turn, Hussein was asked to provide an affidavit and police report to show that his phone and the SIM card were stolen. He did. Then he was required to provide his NIN. That he didn’t have, but there was a NIN desk in there, so he thought that wouldn’t be an issue. Alas, the server that links the telecom provider’s internet service to the NIMC was down. Another waiting game ensured and he eventually left. The server was still down on day three when Hussein came back.
Standing outside another telecom service providers’ office and not too far from its gate was an umbrella. Sitting under its shade, three young men with an iPad whispered to every passer-by. “Is it welcome back?” They’d ask. If the answer is positive, they would enumerate the problems likely to be encountered inside the telco’s office, then offer assistance at a fee hundred percent more than the service providers charge. If you’re willing to pay, they offer you a seat, and do all the capturing. And many were willing to pay and avoid all the delays. Then they ask if you have an affidavit. If you don’t have one, they would tell you to take a passport photograph, pointing to where another accomplice was stationed. You pay for the affidavit and passport; and before you say, “Jack”, all the documents are ready. Thereafter, the welcome back process starts.
But the entire process appears to have links with someone working with the telcos. After getting your details, the information is transmitted to an insider who would later call them to say that it’s been done. A new SIM is brought out and you are asked to go and start using the SIM in two hours. However, perhaps due to their speed to attend to many customers, some SIMS were not properly “welcomed back” and one has start all over the next day.
No awareness creation till sudden deadline of December 31, 2020
Prof. Paul Idornigie, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria noted that rather than an abrupt decision, the registration should have been gradual and continuous.
“I have asked myself, if we do not have NIN, say by the end of July, what would have happened? Would Nigeria have collapsed? Would Nigeria have ceased to exist? Why was that deadline given, why? What is the consequence? I think it should have been more of education. Make us realize it is important to register, not the unreasonable deadlines. NIMC has branches in all the states so they should have been funded enough from start to create more centres for registration or engage more consultants and private entities. That’s the way to go.”
Onyekachi Umah a Legal Awareness Expert shared his observations. “The problem we’re having is that the institutions we have refused to work. A father and a mother for instance have the responsibility to register a baby once it is born. The question is – in how many hospitals do we have the NIMC (National Identity Management Commission) posts in? If you’re giving birth to a child in a hospital let’s say in Abuja for instance, there should be a NIMC post there. The NIMC post there allows the father or the mother of the child to enrol and obtain a NIN (National Identification Number). Let’s say it’s not convenient at that point. When this child is brought for postnatal care, you register him or her. The law gives 18 months grace to stay without registering a child. The point is -almost every parent in Nigeria is in violation of the NIMC Act without knowing it. The law provides that every parent must register his or her child at birth.
“Look at the telecommunications companies for instance. Prior to the directive to discontinue SIM registration, if you want to buy an MTN SIM card and get registered, you simply walk down the street. Before you walk a hundred yards, you’ll see their umbrella. So why don’t we have that? I recently misplaced my debit card and went to the bank to get a replacement. It didn’t take 30 minutes and another card had been printed for me. It is same with every commercial bank. You can walk into any of their branches and have your debit card replaced in minutes if you request for it. When I did my NIN registration, what I was given was a temporary card not the real thing. I was told that the actual National Identity Card will be ready at a future date.”
Despite assurances, that he would give a feedback, Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC did not respond to our questions on these matters after several calls and reminders. The questions were sent to his whatsApp line at his request.
Culled from: lawandsocietymagazine.com
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