Phone Users In Frenzy To Register SIM

With a few hours to the expiration of the deadline for SIM card registration today, telephone subscribers this morning besieged the premises of their telephone service providers and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) registration outlets to beat the deadline.

TechnologyTimesng.com reports that over 60 million phone users were captured as at August ending, quoting the executive chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Eugene Juwah.

According to official figures, there are about 90 million active phone users in Nigeria, with 95 per cent of them subscribing to mobile.

To meet the deadline, the service providers have also provided mobile registration outlets apart from the registration going on in their offices to ease congestion in their offices.

Some civil servants had to first report at the registration outlets with the hope that if they are able to get the registration done quickly, they would go and resume work.

Seats provided for guests at the offices of service providers were not enough for the subscribers.

Security guards at the offices of service providers had a hectic time controlling the customers.

Some customers, on seeing the crowd that had queued to register, had to turn back, saying that they cannot stay the whole day simply because they had to register their SIM cards.

At the Glo office situated at Challenge Area of Ibadan, capital of Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria, customers were so many that Glo management was forced to create about ten temporary registration points within its premises in order to accommodate as many subscribers as possible.

Zain regional office situated at Agodi also witnessed a large number of customers who came for registration.

The situation was not different at MTN and STARCOMMS offices situated at Mobil Area of Ibadan.

MTN had no problem controlling the crowd as its staff used electronic gadgets to number customers as they came into the office. This made the registration a lot easier.

Virtually all the staff of STARCOMMS were involved in the exercise.

Also, the authorities of the University of Ibadan (UI) provided registration points where all the network service providers converged to assist members of the university community who had not been able to register their SIMs to do so within the stipulated time.

However, some telephone users believe that there should not have been a deadline for SIM registration. They pleaded that those who would not be able to register today as a result of one reason or the other should be given more time to do so.

They said that there is no way the telephone providers will register all those that turned up for registration before the end of the day’s exercise, stressing that even if they decide to extend the exercise till 12 midnight, not all SIMs will be registered.

According to TechnologyTimesng.com, the service providers are mounting pressure on the NCC to extend the deadline.

Several subscribers in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria came out in large numbers today to register their lines at different designated registration centres.

In some of the areas visited by P.M.NEWS, there were long queues.

At MTN business outlet in Egbeda in Alimosho area of Lagos, there was a long queue thus making the subscribers to complain on text messages urging them to register their lines which they had already registered.

They told our correspondent that they were confused whether to register at the NCC centres or the services providers’.

At the Airtel office in Ikeja, the situation was the same. The hall was jambpacked with subscribers jostling to register their lines.

At a registration centre under the Ikeja flyover, some subscribers who were on queue to register complained about the slow pace of the exercise.

They lamented that they may not be able to meet the deadline, which means their lines may be blocked.

—Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan & HEnry Ojelu