More reasons why the telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is set to wield the big stick on defiant Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) over continued service access of unregistered SIM cards on their systems have emerged.
The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, had on Monday this week in Abuja, took a swipe on the regulatory intelligence of the telecoms industry by indicting the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), for not doing much to end the use of unregistered SIM cards in the country.
According to the Army chief, the development remains a key failure on the side of the regulator especially in the use of digital and mobile forensics by the Nigeria military in the fight against terrorism, kidnapping and other national threats.
Business Hilights recalls that since the trended sanction on MTN Nigeria for not deactivating about 5.2 million unregistered SIM cards, there have been reports of existing unregistered SIMs still in use by criminals across the country.
The army chief spoke at the opening of the 6th International Digital, Mobile and Computer Forensics Conference and Training Expo organised by the Computer Forensics Institute of Nigeria (CFIN).
In his lead paper, ‘Digital, Mobile and Computer Forensics as a Tool in Fighting Terrorism and Internal Threats’, Gen. Buratai averred that military investigators were able to get unregistered SIM cards from vendors last week without difficulty.
Represented by Brig.-Gen. Samuel Adebayo, the COAS further identified improperly registered SIM cards in use in the country as a challenge.
He pointed out that the issue of continued use of unregistered SIMs is hobbling identity tracking, especially in the case of kidnappings, terrorism and other forms of criminal acts in the country almost an impossible task.
He recalled that “In some instances, these SIM cards are registered with phony names, untraceable addresses or even unrecognisable photographs.
“For those who are involved in investigation of those kinds of things, when you go to the service provider, you will discover that the data on some people is blank; there is no face attached to it.
“In some cases, the users live in the bush or hills, but registered the SIM cards with addresses that don’t exist because the man who registered them allowed such a thing without any method of confirmation.
“So, when it comes to the analysis, you discover that you are hitting a brick wall because to do a link analysis becomes very difficult or unfortunately impossible.
“I believe there is the need to raise this issue because as at a week ago, we were still able to get some SIM cards that are unregistered from vendors without any problem, and they are still working till now”.
However, NCC has met in an emergency meeting with chief executive officers of major telecommunications companies in Abuja over persistent breach of national security with pre-registered SIM cards.
Though details of the meeting on Monday are yet to be made public, indications are rife that based on the indictment made by the Army chief in another event in Abuja, and other incidences surrounding the issue of proliferation of unregistered SIM cards, NCC may be forced to invoke sanctions.
Already, the 2011 SIM Registration understanding developed by NCC, in collaboration with networks is still in force.
According to the provisions of the regulation, any activated SIM card which had not been deactivated over a given time will be deactivated by NCC and a fine of $200,000 paid on it by the network.
This was exactly the regulation that hit MTN Nigeria which originally amounted to about $5.4bn (N1.4tn) but was later reduced to a lower amount under a controversial circumstance that has remained very hard to explain in some quarters.
Business Hilights gathered that since January this year, NCC hrough its Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement has vigorously pursued agents selling pre-registered SIM cards and imposed sanctions and fines on operators.
Several joint raids with the security agents were carried out on pre-registered SIM cards selling points in Kano, Jigawa, Abuja, Lagos and others.
But based on signals from the Nigerian Army, efforts of the NCC seem not enough after all.
