A Nigerian subscriber body has asked the country’s information technology minister for an extension of the nation’s just-concluded June 30 SIM card registration deadline.

The National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria (Natcoms) has appealed to Omobola Johnson to extend the deadline by three months.

In a letter addressed to the minister, Natcoms national president, Deolu Ogunbanjo, said there was a need to ensure every subscriber was given fair consideration.

He pardoned subscribers from any blame for failing to register, saying most of them had complied but were let down by what Ogunbanjo called ‘inept agents’ who struggled to cope with demand.

Ogunbanjo said some agents were not compiling all data required to complete the registration process but were influenced rather by the temptation to gain financially.

Subscribers had to present their identity particulars and proof of residence to register.

“Some umbrella SIM registration agents, during the active registration period were asking subscribers to pay, a situation that discouraged subscribers. And some umbrella SIM registration agents, even when they are agents of a particular network operator, collect other operators SIM cards for registration in order to shore up the number of SIM cards they registered daily,” claimed Ogunbanjo.

“In view of these submissions, a lot of subscribers thus will be locked out due to no fault of theirs as they think they have registered their SIM cards,” he continued.

Nigeria embarked on a SIM card registration process in March last year in a bid to curb crimes that are carried out with the help of handsets.

The NCC, whose initial deadline for the SIM registration was September 2011, has since begun collecting data and information from the exercise.

The West African nation has more than 100 million mobile network subscriptions, according to the likes of BuddeComm research.