By: Oriade Ayomide
The NNC yesterday accused SIM card registration agents of using pictures of animals and foodstuff to represent human faces. Head, Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement of Nigeria Communication Commission, MrEfosaIdehen who disclosed this yesterday said some agents even sell pre-activated SIM cards at exorbitant prices.
In his words: “It may interest you to know that after the telephone operators might have completed their own part of the registration and forwarded it to us as the regulators; we sometimes find pictures of goats and yams.We also do find pictures of women with men’s name and vice versa.
“When information got to the NCC that some people were buying SIM cards without their biometrics, it became worrisome to us because the main purpose of SIM card registration was going to be defeated.It may also interest you to know that these already pre-activated SIM cards are usually sold at a premium sum of N1, 500 as against N100 for the normal ones.”
He warned that “Anyone who sells fully activated SIM cards is as guilty as the person who registers the card because they are not supposed to be registered before sale,” adding that anyone found with pre-activated SIM cards would be prosecuted and may end up paying a fine of N200,000.
