Undermining The Purpose Of Sim Registration

When the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) embarked on the registration of Subscriber’s Identification Module (SIM) in February 2011, many Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief, with hopes that it would curb a lot of criminal activities associated with the use of mobile phones back then. However, the exercise has been faced with various degrees of challenges ranging from the sale of pre-registered SIMs and lack of total adherence by both subscribers and operators.
The involvement of NCC in SIM registration exercise was because of the increasing rate of crimes in the country. Fraudsters used the mobile phones as means of communication in perpetrating crimes and collection of ransom from families of kidnapped victims. Hence, the need arose as NCC wanted to develop a central data management system of all telecoms subscribers, to enable security agents make use of such data in fighting crimes.
The issue of pre-registered SIMs was not handled with kid-gloves as NCC and the Nigerian Police recorded a huge success in arresting the situation, but today the exercise is now being undermined by those who are supposed to be protecting it. The registration of SIMs if not for any other reason was majorly for crime fighting, which then means that for a SIM to be easily traced, it must only be registered with a particular individual. In other words, once a SIM is identified with a subscriber, it automatically should mean that the subscriber owns the SIM no matter what, and on no account must it be re-registered with another subscriber.
The SIMs should form a part and parcel of an individual once it is registered; alas what is obtainable is otherwise. Once you fail to recharge your card for a period of ninety days, you should be prepared to forfeit the number despite the registration processes and its objectives.
It is hence quite important that the NCC continues her monitoring and insist on the strict adherence of the goals of this exercise. The lack of subscriber identification database had far-reaching security implications and was being exploited by unscrupulous individuals to perpetrate crime and illegal activities in the country; this will also be the consequences of reallocating an existing and registered SIM number to another subscriber, thereby duplicating information in the database.
The cost of the SIM should be burned by the initial subscriber and the SIM should remain one’s form of identity no matter what happens. It is time for the mobile operators to device means of retaining their customers instead of stripping them off their SIMs.
With the current security challenges facing the country today, it is imperative that further retrieving of these numbers might someday prove a hard nut to crack in tracking an individual in the case of any breach of law and other. It is also worthy of note that, the interpretation and trepidation of some leaders of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, has been made possible through this process of SIM registration, which also saw their retaliation through the bombing and destruction of Base Transceiver Stations and other telecomm facilities in some of the North-Eastern States of our country- Nigeria.
Aside from the terrorists Boko Haram, the Nigerian police have recorded several land mark achievements on their investigations and arrest of suspects by tracking their numbers through this database. The judiciary also have been able to obtain evidences to prosecute suspects. All these will be hampered if these registered SIMs continually be withdrawn from their original owners to another subscriber. Instead of the current method, the operators should allow the customers to bear the cost of producing the SIMs while it to forms part of a subscriber’s identity permanently.