Let truth heal the rotten process of SIM/NIN harmonisation – By Okoh Aihe

I was just wondering, why can’t we perform very simple tasks as a nation without unnecessary perambulation? The NIN/SIM harmonisation was planned to be a very simple exercise, just for only two weeks. But disharmony has never been so much on the stroll than in this exercise which has become so obfuscated that reason and excuses have given way to suspicion and now recriminations.

At what stage is the exercise? Too difficult for anybody to access except that available evidence points to the fact that any time soon about 10 million mobile lines will be taken off the mobile networks for the notorious reasons that they have not been properly registered because the SIM and NIN cannot properly reconcile their relationship.

This means one thing, revenue loss to the operators – MTN, Airtel, Glo and 9MOBILE. In an operating environment that remains unstable, with operating cost rising everyday in the face of an absolutely devalued currency, this spells a lot of trouble for the operators who have to be at their creative best to remain in business. And there have been a lot of troubles and struggles in the industry which people hardly know just like they don’t know that the monkey sweats because of the hair on its body.

It was not always like this. Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) and National Identification Number (NIN) forced their way into our conversation in December 2020 when former Communications Minister, Dr Isa Pantami, suddenly came up with what seemed a sublime policy, he thought, had the magic wand to cure Nigeria of all its problems, including insecurity which has remained a nightmare ever since.

From all indications now, the policy is not so sublime. It’s either the process was not thought through or it was sabotaged ab initio. The truth is coming out now and what it washes up is not so salutary, like the breeze blowing the backside of the fowl, it reveals a side that isn’t always the best.

And only the truth, according to the holy books, can make whole. Speaking at a training programme for Front-End Partners (FEP), Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the new Director General of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC)  said, “On assumption of office, we observed countless infractions and unwholesome practices in the NIN enrolment and modification services. Most of the reports of infractions, upon investigation, were done by some of our Front-End Partners.

“I am not exonerating NIMC staff completely but as you may be aware, on different occasions, I led sting operations to some of our offices, where some staff were caught red-handed perpetrating unwholesome conduct.”

I want to congratulate Coker-Odusote this morning for not trying to fight truth or reality with obnoxious untruths. So much has been said about the failure of NIMC but under the previous administration, the agency had enhanced capacity to bamboozle the people with every of their actions no matter how very inane.

Even the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), curators of the SIM registration, which former EVC, Prof Garba Umar Danbatta, so willfuly subordinated to a minister with an exaggerated knowledge of the telecommunications industry, has been pointing five fingers to the failure of the nation’s identity managers.

An NCC source told this writer that NIMC has become a major problem because they created a platform that could be easily manipulated. For instance, NIMC would create a bypass which enabled people under 16 to be registered with only their pictures taken without the biometrics. Some of these people, the source lamented, have been found to register multiple SIMs just by changing only their clothes without even NIMC finding out that they have been capturing the same faces.

Another practice is the generation of unique identity numbers for individuals or organisations which make it possible for one person to register over a thousand SIMs and that can be quite frightening. There is also a token issued by NIMC for a sum that is used to generate virtual NIN by the operators for a SIM to be registered. The money involved makes this attractive. I will return to this later.

An industry source jolted this writer into appraising the true situation the country is steeped. “We have spent billions of Naira trying to build capacity in NIMC by supporting with equipment and training, it has not helped. Money that should have been invested in service buildout has gone into areas where progress has been difficult to register. There is total lack of capacity at NIMC,” the source lamented.

Another source explained that for over a decade mobile operators have been coerced into buying facilities and employing teams for SIM registration, pointing out that there is no part of the world where  corporates have been given the responsibility to collect the bio data of citizens, a function that should be solely NIMC’s in Nigeria.

The foregoing is a stale argument that we may never understand as corporations  in Nigeria hardly attract any empathy or understanding. As it is there are problems, if not complications compelling this writer to encourage NIMC management to go beyond identifying problems but to plug them right away.

There are economic implications as the operators will lose money, but the more troubling are the security implications which clearly invalidate the original idea of the exercise, to tackle security issues. On the strength of this, an industry source explained that the subterranean intention may actually have been for some dealmakers to make some money from the policy, hiding under the overbearing weight of insecurity.

On its part, NCC is taking some actions, as an official told this writer. “There are so many things we have seen in the  registration platforms that we are removing. There is a situation where one person with a NIMC unique number could reggster over 400 lines!” Like a silver bullet but the unique number brings no good.

As it is, the job is well cut out for NIMC, that is if you accommodate that cliche. Great that the DG has confessed to weaknesses and sharp practices noticed in the registration process. What is needed is a complete overhaul, a thorough house cleaning.

For instance, how many unique numbers have been issued? How many tokens have been generated so far and who are the beneficiaries of the income arising therefrom? An NCC source told me that too many alarming things have been done at NIMC. Is the DG able to confirm that such actions and other activities too sordid to mention have not compromised the NIMC platform to the level of concern? A former minister introduced the SIM/NIN harmonisation as his mark of genius, which ingenuity has really not helped the nation. What is the current minister doing about the policy?

One final question. Is it not possible for somebody to acquire a SIM card simply by tendering a National ID Card, International Passport or even a Driver’s Licence  as done in other parts of the world?

I suggest we come clean with the truth. Let’s free the mobile  operators from a superfluous responsibility and also release them from a chokehold so that they can fully concentrate on service delivery to their customers. It is not their responsibility to manage the nation’s identity system.