By Abubakar Yunusa
Telecommunications operators say the recent barring of some subscribers’ lines has nothing to do with a planned national protest billed to start from Thursday.
Millions of subscribers’ lines have been barred in recent days in a move that many suspected to be part of the government’s attempt to stifle the planned protest.
But the Telcos say the development is not connected to the protest.
“The attention of the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has been drawn to some online reports linking the ongoing subscriber line barring exercise, with the planned national protest,” ALTON said in a Monday statement by its chairman Gbenga Adebayo and secretary Gbolahan Awonuga.
“There’s absolutely no connection between the two. The NIN/SIM link registration deadline has earlier been set for 31st July 2024. The fact of the matter is that the harmonization exercise of the SIM Registration database and National Identity Database has been ongoing for several months. This is aimed at improving the integrity of the National SIM registration database. Customers who had their lines blocked recently are those whom their service providers found a mismatch between their records on both databases.”
It asked customers to reach their service providers for the resolution of the issue.
