The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has set June 30th as the deadline for the country’s Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card registration process.
The SIM card registration is a joint exercise with Nigeria’s mobile operators. And the initiative calls on the West African nation’s subscribers who have not registered their SIMs to do so.
According to the NCC, failure to register is planned to result in those SIMs being deactivated by the networks.
Tony Ojobo, director of public affairs at the NCC, took to popular social network Twitter last week Friday to announce the deadline - saying that the decision to end the registration exercise was taken after a meeting between the commission and the service providers.
SIM registrations have been carried out in countries such as South Africa to help crack down on criminal activities.
“From the 30th of June 2013, all unregistered SIM cards will be barred from the telecom services,” his tweet read.
“This decision was taken after a meeting between the Commission and the service providers,” he added.
Ojobo added on Twitter that the total number of registered SIM cards would be made known after the June 30th deadline.
The NCC’s initial cut-off date for SIM card registration was 28 September 2011 but the commission had to postpone the deadline owing to a high number of unregistered SIMs.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest mobile market, with more than 100 million active subscribers recorded last year, according to the NCC.
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