The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has directed telecommunications companies, including MTN Nigeria and Airtel, to fully bar phone lines without National Identity Numbers (NIN) and those whose NINs have not been verified.
This directive is part of an industry-wide effort requiring phone lines without submitted NINs to be barred by February 28, 2024.
For NINs that have been submitted but not verified, the lines are to be barred by March 29, 2024, if five or more lines are linked to an unverified NIN.
For less than five lines linked to an unverified NIN, the lines are to be barred by April 15, 2024. Subscribers must undergo biometric and biodata verification before their lines are unbarred.
This follows the NCC’s earlier directive in April 2022, requiring operators to restrict outgoing calls for subscribers without linked NINs. MTN Nigeria has encouraged affected subscribers to submit their NINs for verification and expressed its commitment to compliance with the industry-wide directive.
