In March this year, a family went to a telecom company’s office in Abuja pleading with the firm to help track the kidnappers of their father as police hunt for the abductors did not yield the expected result.
James, the first son of the abducted man, said resorting to the telecom company to track the calls and location of the criminals was the only option as the kidnappers have been exchanging calls with the family on ransom to free the abducted man.
Again, in April the police command in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja was shocked when the news broke that gunmen abducted two officers who were on their way home from a funeral at Shere community in the outskirt of Abuja.
The intrigue of the abduction is that despite paying the N1.4 million ransom, raised partly by the family members of the abducted, though the police refuted such claims, the kidnappers refused to release their captives.
The worse, according to a family member, was that “When they were contacted on the phone, the kidnappers said they had travelled, promising to release the men when they returned, but we do not understand what they meant by that.”
Aside the two case studies, kidnappers seem to be on rampage, abducting people almost every day across the country and collecting ransom in millions, while a few of them have been caught.
While kidnappers are using phone calls to negotiate ransom, SIM swap seems the easiest way to defraud people. Sometime ago, Tunde Daramola, a business man, was having issues with his phone number, thinking it was a network issue.
By the time Daramola discovered what was happening, over N1 million had been fraudulently taken out of his bank account through the registered phone number using USSD codes.
Someone with criminal intention swapped his number at a customer centre of a service provider and had access to all his vials including finance. He complained and his number was restored but the money was not recovered.
But as James pointed out in his father’s kidnap case, the hoodlums can be tracked, cornered and defeated if telecom companies commit in assisting police by tracking the calls and movements of the kidnappers and reporting accordingly.
While many citizens insist that the Police and other security operatives are not doing enough to stem the menace, the Police keep denying the claims, describing such as allegations. “Criminals are exploiting technology such as unregistered SIM cards to conduct kidnappings nowadays. But we do the best we can and we keep improving but crime keeps changing shape and color”, a police officer who craved anonymous said.
Though telecom companies claimed to have addressed the SIM swap menace and that their tracking have led to the bursting of kidnappers hideouts and several arrests, notably Evans, a notorious kidnapper, observers think that there are many kidnapping cases that are not tracked because the police did not engage telecom companies, which are mandated by law to provide lead to investigations when needed, and even when engaged, the police often delay action on lack of logistics.
Observers also noted that there is a seeming scramble for subscribers that has made the major telecom companies in Nigeria to pay less attention to registration requirements, hence criminals, especially kidnappers and SIM swappers are taking advantage of the lapses to get SIM cards that are not identifiable or traceable for ulterior motives.
According to statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigeria’s telecommunications sector ended year 2018 with 172 million subscribers of which MTN remained the largest operator with 66.7 million subscribers and 39.7 percent market share, Globacom followed with 43.3 million subscribers, Airtel had 43.1 million subscribers, while the embattled Emerging Market Telecommunications Service (EMTS) trading as 9Mobile, serviced 15.4 million subscribers.
The trend is that the leading companies are making efforts to remain at the top while those with lower subscribers are trying to boost their subscribers, hence the free SIM card and less attention to the requirements for SIM card registration. It is now a game of numbers for them.
According to Aigbe Orhue, a lawyer, SIM card registration was supposed to be as strict as international passport and even bank verification number as vital data are required from the subscribers.
“We are in an era where telecom companies are offering their SIM cards free of charge all in the name of boosting their subscriber base. So, anybody can get and register a SIM card anywhere and anytime because it is now free for all who have phones”, the lawyer said.
Going down the memory lane, Judith Oguma, a medical doctor, recalled buying a SIM card for N22,000 in 2002.
“The irony is that the SIM card is free now, while the phones, which were cheaper then, are very expensive now. I am not saying the SIM card should be expensive but the manner hawkers and telecom agents push them to your face is worrisome. The fact that the SIM cards are free means the telecom companies are paying the agents money to distribute and register the cards to whoever cares”, she said.
Kekere Abe, an agent of a telecom company who runs a registration kiosk in Surulere, Lagos, said that he is under pressure to woo people to register. Abe, who said he is paid handsomely for such efforts, said that the pressure has often made him to woo friends, business associates and even passersby to subscribe for the sake of subscription for his commission to be paid.
“The SIM cards are free and I am paid to register people, so I make extra efforts to get people to subscribe in order to earn money. I don’t know what they do with the lines later”, he confessed.
Citing instance, Abe said a tanker driver lost his phone while in Lagos to lift petroleum product to Ilorin, later he bought a small phone and registered a new SIM card at his kiosk when he could have retrieved the old line.
“When I advised him to wait and retrieve the old line, he told me that the SIM was the fifth he is using in three years. I registered a new SIM card for him because I also need his patronage”, Abe said.
The question is, what if the driver uses the line for crime, how can you trace him because Abe used the scanty and unverified information the driver gave to register his card?
Another intrigue for Abe is the kind of names people give for their registration.
But there are many out there with thousands of SIM cards that are not properly registered and hence, cannot be traced when used to perpetrate crime.
As the lawyer pointed out, the telecom companies cannot exonerate themselves from the often inability to track kidnappers through their phone calls because they overlooked the registration process, which is the most important thing. It means you cannot properly profile your subscribers, as well, not sure of active subscribers as an active kidnapper’s line can go off after ransom is paid.
However, the NCC attests to the negative impacts of improper registration of SIM card. The Commission disclosed that due to fraudulently-activated SIM cards, many genuine subscribers have become victims of armed robbery, kidnappings and financial crimes or SIM swap fraud.
Speaking a while ago at the Enugu edition of the NCC sensitisation program, Sunday Dare, the former executive commissioner, stakeholder management at NCC stressed the importance of educating all stakeholders on the dangers of pre-registered SIM cards.
According to him, “the availability of improperly-registered SIM cards in any corner of Nigeria is a threat to the security of all of us. Such SIM cards make it possible to commit financial crimes whose victims are ordinary hardworking citizens.
“Also, pre-registered and fraudulently- activated SIM cards, if left unchecked, make it difficult for our law enforcement agents to apprehend persons involved in major criminal activities and they can be used in the perpetration of horrible crimes such as terrorism, kidnapping and similar felonies, making suspect virtue untraceable,” he said.
But as a proactive measure, the telecommunications regulator in 2017, came up with a SIM replacement guideline, which makes the process of replacing lost, stolen or damaged SIM cards more stringent in order to protect telecommunications consumers.
While speaking recently on reason for such stringent conditions, Umar Garba Danbatta, the executive vice chairman of NCC said that before replacing a SIM card, consumers are required to identify themselves properly through court affidavit, national identification card (or other valid IDs), SIM pack, among other requirements, saying this is to ensure that telecom subscribers are well protected from being victims of SIM swap fraud.
He also disclosed that there has been constant enforcement activities of proper Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards carried out by the NCC through its Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement team, which has resulted in securing convictions against more than 200 individuals arrested for indulging in sales of pre-registered SIM cards.
From the operators perspective, a staff of MTN said there are stringent rules for registration or swap but that subscribers often frown at being asked to bring court affidavit, national identification card (or other valid IDs), SIM pack, among other requirements,
“They think that we are putting them through stress to have their SIM replaced”, the staff said.
Meanwhile, industry observers agree that the issues concerning subscriber registration or re-registration are central to national security and thereby requires severe regulatory framework to keep it under firm control as well as ensuring a high level of compliance, which is a routine exercise by the CME team of the Commission.
Buttressing the Commission’s initiative, Olusola Teniola, the president, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) told BDSunday that the stringent measures adopted by the NCC should be appreciated by the consumers against backdrop of the danger posed by a loose or casual SIM card registration and re-registration process raising all sorts of concerns in the country.
In line with Teniola, the executive secretary of NCC advised, “But consumers must appreciate the fact that information being required from them is to establish that anybody coming for SIM swap proves that the number requested to be swapped belongs to him/her. In this case, we enjoin consumers to immediately report to their respective banks to block their accounts or place a notice ‘no withdrawal’ on such account linked to the stolen, damaged or lost SIM cards”.
While the subscribers appreciate efforts by the regulator and mobile network operators to curb the use of phone lines for fraudulent activities, they think more should be done as kidnappers still negotiate ransom through phone calls amid other crimes.
Obinna Emelike and Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson
