Raphael Ede, Enugu
The Nigerian Communications Commission, yesterday said that it is working with the National Assembly to criminalise mobile phone Subscriber Identity/ Identification Module (SIM) card infractions.
The Director, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of NCC, Mr Efosa Idehen, disclosed this in Enugu during a regional sensitisation workshop with stakeholders. Declaring the workshop tagged ‘the dangers of dealing on fraudulently activated SIM cards’, Idehen described as sad that fraudulently registered SIM cards were still sold in the market despite punitive measure the regulatory agency had put in.
He said that release of pre-registered SIM cards compromises national security, even as he said that it was the responsibility of NCC to ensure that Nigerians were safe using mobile phones.
While he charged Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and their agents to adhere strictly to the laws that prohibit the release of fully activated SIM cards into the market, he identified the dangers of selling pre-registered SIM cards to include aiding kidnapping, robbery, financial crimes and others.
“For eight years now we have done so much to curb the sales of pre-registered SIM cards without getting the desired results.
“We are, therefore, working on a legal framework to criminalise the release of fraudulently activated SIM cards to the market,” he said.
Idehen said that it had become imperative to check or remove the menace posed by itinerant registration agents and to ensure that SIM card registrations were carried out in controlled environments.
He said that the NCC introduced SIM card registration for national security and not for the MNOs to know their customers. While advising MNOs to be circumspect in their businesses, Idehen warned that going forward any infraction would cause the arrest and prosecution of all actors along the SIM card registration value chain.