A member of the Computer Registration Council of Nigeria, Dr. Idika Ocha, has in Abuja, advised members of the House of Representatives opposed to the proposed SIM Card registration to give consideration to the lives and safety of Nigerian citizens above whatever other consideration.
Some members of the House of Reps recently stood against the passage of the N6.1 billion SIM Card registration budget proposal of the NCC after the Senate had not only approved the budget, but has also approved the harmonization of the budget with the relevant committees of the both Houses of the National Assembly.
He reminded the lawmakers that that international terrorism, fraud, robbery and other crimes often involve extensive communications though text messages or voice calls.
“The Madrid bomb was detonated using a SIM card. Back home in Nigeria, we are also witnessing increasing incidents of threats and frauds launched daily on our citizens using mobile phone platforms. The remarkable upsurge in violent crimes in Nigeria like kidnapping – with criminals demanding ransom mainly through mobile telephone calls have contributed to the reason why the Federal Government added its voice in calling for the registration of SIM cards”, he noted.
Dr. Ocha who expressed surprise over the latest action of some members of the Lower House which stalled the much awaited commencement of the registration of over 79 Million existing SIM Cards in the network, and argued that security agencies, consumer advocacy groups, service providers and experts, agreed that the Commission is best placed to carry out the registration.
Perhaps less obvious, but equally important for the’ support for SIM card registration by industry stakeholder is the nagging question of just how many telephone subscribers Nigeria truly has. This question will be put to rest when the SIM card registration is concluded. According to NCC figures, at the last estimation in 2009, the country had slightly over 70 million subscribers. However, it is acknowledged that a percentage of these are made up of individuals who hold more than one SIM card, but the exact figure is unknown. Collaterally related to this, is the need for definitive determination of market dominance position of the operators in Nigeria’s telecoms marketplace. The market share statistics of different operators would guide the NCC when enacting directives for competition regulation.
“For variety of reasons – policy makers, law makers, regulators, operators, security agents, stakeholders in the industry and informed segment of the general public are unanimous in their support for SIM card registration in the country with NCC driving the process.
“Within the ambit of the rule-making process of the commission, several options for carrying out SIMs card registration were explored and the modalities of realizing them were considered by an Action Committee, comprised of NCC officials, GSM operators, security operatives, media and other relevant bodies presented a finalized report”, he said.
Dr. Ocha who is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, IEEE, said calls by some of the members that the service providers be allowed to register SIM Card is the country is highly misplaced.
“Asking the GSM operators to carry out the registration exercise would amount to Nigerian government abdicating its vital institutional role of being the sole custodian of security sensitive database and managing citizen identity information.
“That will be a very humiliating and damaging turn of events for the country as anybody could be blackmailed by these multi-national telecom companies”, he said.
Dr. Ocha noted that during the House of Representative budget debate, “the house had treated dismissively an important disclosure by Mr. Dave Salako - the chairman of House Committee on Communications, who had informed the House that telecoms operators had expressed their inability to finance the SIM card registration exercise. As a result, a compromise position was worked out whereby the telecom operators agreed with NCC to register fresh subscribers while the commission would register old and existing subscribers.”
According to him, “even if the mobile phone operators are mandated to take on the entire burden of carrying out the SIM card registration exercise, they will ultimately pass on the cost to the subscribers in form high tariff and charges – granted there is no free launch any place in the real world”, he said.
Dr. Ocha said “the practical reason for desiring to create a database of SIM card subscribers is to provide a unified and seamless access of SIM data to such stakeholders as national security and law enforcement agencies - including the NPF, SSS, NSA, NIA, FRSC, NIS and NPS.
“If we allow each telecom operator to create a separate database for subscribers on its network, access to data by the security agencies will become impractical and far from seamless with separate database for MTN, Globacom, ZAIN, Etisalat, Visafone, Multilink, ZoomMobile and Intercellular subscribers, among others”, he said.
Dr. Ocha advised the Parliamentarians to see this effort to register SIM by the NCC as a patriotic move, and therefore must resist lobbyists on the issue.
“Should Nigerian parliamentarians take the bait thrown up by the lobbyists, the SIM card registration exercise may never see the light of day. I therefore urge the National Assembly to join hands with the NCC and put Nigeria above all other interests. Approving the 2010 budget of the NCC will set the stage for the commencement of the registration exercise”, he said.
Dr. Ocha noted that the SIM cards registration project may actually turn out to be the shortest linear path, as well as the most affordable approach to the creation of National Identity Database, especially with the level of involvement of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in structuring the currently debated SIM cards registration drive
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