Thousands of telecommunication subscribers nationwide seeking to retrieve their lost Subscriber Identity Module cards (SIM), or acquire new lines temporarily have been left stranded, following a technical glitch in the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), portal that has grounded SIM-related services.
The affected NIMC portal enables telecom firms, the Nigerian Immigration Service, banks and other organizations to verify the National Identity Number (NIN), of their customers before attending to them, in line with the Federal Government’s directive.
Following the directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), for the inclusion of NIN in the requirements for all new and existing SIM cards, telecom firms are required to synchronize their SIM registration portals with the NIMC portal in order to verify the details of their subscribers.
However, the downtime experienced over the past five days by the NIMC portal has made it almost impossible for telecom firms to sell new SIM cards or retrieve lost lines.
The President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said the association was aware of the NIMC server downtime and had been duly informed that the situation was being handled.