MTN Nigeria and the Nigerian arm of Airtel Africa barred 13.5 million lines in the first half of 2024 in connection with the Nigerian Communications Commission directive to disconnect lines that have not been successfully linked with a National Identification Number (NIN).
The telcos announced this in their financial results for the period ending June 30, 2024. At the end of 2023, the NCC asked telcos to disconnect lines that had not been successfully linked with a NIN across three phases.
It said, “All SIMs for which the subscribers have not submitted their NINs are to be barred on or before 28 February 2024. Where five or more SIMs are linked to an unverified NIN, they are to be barred on or before 29 March 2024. Where less than five SIMs are linked to an unverified NIN, they are to be barred on or before 15 April 2024.”
Read also:SIM-NIN: NCC orders reactivation of all barred lines
The NCC later shifted its April deadline for final disconnection to July 31, 2024. In compliance with the first two phases of the directive, MTN revealed that it barred 8.6 million in H1. Despite this, the telco was still able to grow its subscriber base. Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria’s chief executive officer, said, “We managed to limit the decline in our base to 280k; resulting in a 2.9 percent year-on-year increase in our customers to 79.4 million. This outcome was supported by various initiatives we have deployed to retain affected customers, reduce churn and drive gross connections.”
Airtel noted that 8.7 million customers have been verified since the NCC’s directive. However, it stated that some 4.9 million had yet to be verified. “Currently we are engaging with approximately 4.9m customers whose NINs are yet to be verified, with approximately $3m-$4m of monthly revenue at risk. We continue to engage with the NCC and work closely with the relevant authorities to facilitate and accelerate the verification process to minimise the risk of service disruption to these customers whilst also limiting the revenue impact from our compliance to the directive issued,” the telco said.
However, there was a public outcry when telcos implemented the final phase of disconnections in compliance with the 31st of July deadline. This boiled over into violence in some MTN locations, causing the telco to shut its stores on Tuesday, 30th of July 2024.
Toriola of MTN said, “Additionally, we recently barred the remaining subscribers with less than five lines linked to unverified NIN in compliance with the 31st of July deadline. However, the NCC subsequently directed operators to reactivate the affected lines to give subscribers more time to go through the verification process, and we have complied.”
On Wednesday, MTN announced the reopening of its stores, stating they will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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