The registration of subscriber identification module (SIM) cards has been on for over two years.The exercise ends on Sunday, but many subscribers are yet to be registered. Even those who registered long ago are getting what they describe as “disheartening messages” from their service providers. Will the exercise achieve the desired result? Lucas Ajanaku and Deji Fakorede ask.
In 2008, the Boko Haram insurgency had not become frightening, but there were reports that some unscrupulous elements were using their mobile phones to send short service messages (SMS) and making threat calls.
Inundated with these reports, the security agencies approached the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for help because the calls could not be traced.
NCC moved swiftly, convening a consultative forum involving telecoms operators, consumer groups, security agencies, telecoms associations, dealers, the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC), National Population Commission (NPC), National Census Commission, the media and other interest groups.
The forum agreed that phone users be registered. A committee was set up to further look at the details of the implementation of the registration and submit its recommendations to the NCC. The report was reviewed and the NCC gave its blessings to the exercise.
On March 28, 2011, amid pomp and celebration, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Execuitve Officer, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, launched the SIM card registration in Abuja. The exercise, according to the NCC, ends on Sunday. It warned that unregistered SIMs would be deactivated by the end of the month, adding that new subscribers would continue to join the network but their cards must be registered before their activation.
Subscribers are expressing concern over conflicting reports from their service providers. “Officials of some of the operators actually came down to my offfice and did the registration of subscribers on their network by themselves. I am amazed that few days to the end of the exercise, I am getting reports that my SIM card registration failed. I was advised to go to the nearest customer care centre to do the registration,” a journalist lamented.
According to him, with officials of the telcos coming with all the paraphenalia of SIM card registration to his office, he had gone to bed, concluding that nothing could shake the infallibility of the exercise. “I am so shocked with the sudden twist in the tale almost at the 11th hour. I cannot leave my job and start looking around for the telco’s customer care centre which is neither close to my house nor office. And in the office, I have enormous responsibilities around my neck that would prevent me from driving to Ikeja, Berger, Mushin or the Island for the exercise,” he added.
His plight is similar to that of thousands of others, especially those whose service providers found it extremely difficult to come out with a code which would give them an opportunity to know early the status of their SIM card regsitration. Moreover, the number of agents carrying out the exercise has paled into insignificance as they are hardly seen. “The agents are no longer as ubiquitous as they used to be when the exercise began over two years ago,” Richard Adeyeye, a Lagos-based businessman said, adding that the agents now operate in clusters.
A SIM registration agent, who identified himself simply as Yinka, said money is collected from those registering their SIM cards because they are poorly paid by the people that hired them. His colleague, Ahmed, also confirmed that money changes hands when SIM cards are registered. According to him, they have formed an association to protect their interest.
According to the agents, the money they charge people is used to pay for the space where they carry out the exercise. “All manner of people come here to disturb us. So, we use part of the money we make to settle the area boys and keep the rest for our fare,” one of them explained.
NCC has dissociated itself from the money-for-SIM-registration racket. Its Director, Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, said the agents were only doing their principals a great disservice by extorting money from subscribers. He urged subscribers not to pander to the whims and caprices of those trying to fleece them.
Some experts in the industry have questioned the sanctity of the exercise, especially the data collated, wondering if they could serve as yardsticks for planning for the citizenry.
A source at the NIMC deplored the exercise. According to him, the original design for the exercise was drafted by the NIMC. He claimed that when exercise began, the NCC started doing what it liked despite collecting N6.2 billion in…..
“Based on what we did and most of the people who did it are (still around), we worked on the SIM register project; it was designed by the NIMC. We followed the standard that we felt if they adopt and implement, the data will meet our own standard and our own standard are benchmarked on the basis of international standard for such identity data base.
“The moment we stopped being part of that project, rather than (settle for) 10 finger prints, they settled for something less and rather than the number of demographic data base we recommended, they settled for something less. Obviously, it is no longer a perfect exercise. Secondly, the background when you are doing the face shot capture, some of us have been to the high commission for visa, you know they tell you the type of background and the size of the passport photograph. There is a reason for that,” the source said.
According to the source, there are locations where the kiosk attendants just ask the person willing to register SIM to stand well regardless of what the background is and just do the face capture.
The source said said that practice fails to meet international requirement. “That is just an ordinary passport photograph. If you want to convert it into something that can be used to conduct face recognition, it is useless. They just asked me to stand and I did and they took my shot in their office. The place was not well lit and I shook my head that this is not what we recommended. There were certain parameters for all these,” the source added.
Investigation shows that the face capture has since stopped. According to one of the agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, it had to stop because the data capturing machine is not resilient enough to withstand the elements, especially the sun. The designers failed to factor the tropical sun of Africa into the machine, thus, it malfunctions at the slightest exposure to the sun.
Corporate Services Executive, MTN, Akinwale Goodluck, admits that the exercise may not have produced an error-proof national data base. He said the operators had succeeded in handing down a data base, for the first time, to the government for security and national planning.
Realising the importance of a dependable national database for the country, former President Olusegun Obasanjo mooted the national identity card idea in 1978. Obasanjo, then a military ruler, felt that with a credible database, economic planning will be made easy but about 36 years after, the country is still searching for a reliable identity for her citizens.
The scheme was re-introduced in 2001 and several years later, the project failed to deliver cards to millions of Nigerians, who did all they could, including weathering the elements to register.
The first attempt at implementing the project landed some politicians in police net 23 years ago. In 2002, another set of politicians was tried for alleged corrupt enrichment under the scheme.
Following failed attempts, the National Identity Management Commission Act 2007, came into being towards the end of the Obasanjo administration. The NIMC management said it is prepared to hand over a dependable, fool-proof national database to the country.
The Act provides for the establishment of NIMC, National Identity Database, assignment and use of General Multipurpose Cards (GMC), the National Identity Number (NIN) and harmonisation and integration of identity database. It repealed the law creating the Department for National Civic Registration (DNCR), a conduit through which government officials lined their pockets.
The need for a national identity for Nigerians cannot be over-emphasised as most countries, including Pakistan have computerised identity card system with bar coding to make details of the holder available with all the intelligence, police and civil departments. The residential details of holder can easily be ascertained if these computerised cards are issued.
The absence of this facility prompted the Bankers’ Committee’s decision last year to approach the Pensions’ Board for its harmonised customer identification management. This is because the Pension Board’s biometric scheme appeares full-proof. The Independent National Election Commission (INEC) is also seeking to use information at its database to issue permanent voter’s card.
