“If you send your driver or house help to go and register a SIM simply because you don’t want your identity to be known, you are committing a crime.”
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, has accused Nigerians of fueling illegal SIM card registrations by using their drivers and domestic staff for the exercise.
Speaking at an interactive media session on Monday, Maida said the era of unregistered SIMs was over, but admitted that misuse persists. “Right now, I can authoritatively say that no unregistered SIM is operating in the network,” he noted. “But if you send your driver or house help to go and register a SIM simply because you don’t want your identity to be known, you are committing a crime.”
He explained that while SIM registration cannot stop crimes outright, it makes tracking easier for security agencies. “The fact that somebody has a mobile phone doesn’t mean a criminal will not want to use it. The issue is, can they be tracked? Yes,” he said.
Maida disclosed that the NCC will soon release a consumer satisfaction index and a compliance index to improve telecom service quality.