The Nigerian Communications Commission has declared the registration of 95.7 million Subscriber Identity Module cards invalid because of improper capture of fingerprints and faces.
Thus, the telecommunications regulatory agency may soon send the owners of the SIM cards back to registration centres where their details would be properly captured.
The Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, NCC, Mr Sunday Dare, made the disclosure of improper SIM registration at a regional sensitisation workshop in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, according to a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday.
Speaking on the dangers of fraudulently preregistered SIM cards, Dare, who was represented at the forum by the Director, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement at the Commission, Mr Efosa Idehen, said those who indulged in the illegal activity would be charged for felony, adding that they risked 25 years’ imprisonment as prescribed by the law.
He said that since the SIM registration exercise started in 2011, a total of 151,449,837 registration data of subscribers had been processed, with only 55,749,652 records valid, making 63.2 per cent of the total records invalid based on invalid face capturing and fingerprints.
He said once an agent engaging in preregistered SIM cards was arrested, the culpability could cascade to other players in the SIM registration value chain including the super agents, the heads of marketing of mobile network operators and the chief executives of the mobile service provider.
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