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About 51.3 million unique telecommunication devices are not enabled by the mandatory National Identification Numbers (NIM) meaning they are unplugged from telecom services, telecoms regulator – Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed.
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Active telephony subscribers and teledensity rose from 103.79% in February 2022 to 104.54% in March 2022 while active telephony subscribers rose from 198,123,431 to 199,558,540 during the same period.
NIN not without hiccups
But NIN registration has not been without hiccups, about 51.3 million unique telecommunication devices lack the mandatory NIN forcing operators to unplug them from the national network and impacting significantly on both actual number of active subscriptions and teledensity.
However, the contribution of the telecoms industry to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has remained upwardly positive to go by NCC’s industry indicators. Telecoms GDP contribution rose from 11.94% in Q3 2021 to 12.61% in Q4 2021.
According to the NCC in a document: ‘Deployment of a Device Management System: Project Information Memorandum,’ Nigeria had about 132 million unique devices connected to telecommunication networks in 2020 and explained: “With more than 200 million active lines on the Nigerian telecommunication network (as of December 2021), there is great potential for the development of a DMS in the Nigerian market.
“It is estimated that there were approximately 132 million unique devices on the telecommunication network in 2020.”
Once the NIN enrolment figure of 80.7 million people for April 2022 by the Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is subtracted, there is a huge number of 51.3 million devices without NINs and unplugged in compliance with the requirements of the law.
By law, all telecom subscribers must link their Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) to their NINs. SIMS without NINs were blocked effectively by April 4, 2022 as government started a No NIN, No Connection tenet in line with the ‘Revised National Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration,’
