Telecommunications operators claim the recent blocking of certain subscribers’ lines has nothing to do with a national protest scheduled to begin Thursday.
Millions of subscriber lines have been blocked in recent days, raising suspicions that the government was attempting to squelch the planned demonstration.
However, the telcos claim the development has nothing to do with the protest.
“The Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has been drawn to some online reports linking the ongoing subscriber queue barring exercise to the planned national protest,” ALTON said in a Monday statement issued by its chairman Gbenga Adebayo and secretary Gbolahan Awonuga.
“There is absolutely no connection between the two.” The NIN/SIM link registration date has already been scheduled for July 31, 2024. The harmonisation of the SIM Registration database and the National Identity Database has been ongoing for some months. This is intended to improve the integrity of the National SIM registration database. Customers whose lines were recently blocked were identified by their service providers as having a mismatch between their records on both databases.”
It advised people to contact their service providers to resolve the situation.
How to Unblock Your SIM Cards
According to ALTON, operators have put in measures to help customers unblock their lines by following these steps:
1. Airtel: Dial *121# and input your eleven-digit NIN number. The subscriber will receive a confirmation message that you have successfully unbarred your Airtel SIM card.
2. EMTS: 9Mobile: Dial *200*8#
3. Glo: Dial *109*Your NIN number# For example if your NIN is 12345678901, you would dial *109*12345678901# Then follow the prompts to submit your NIN for linkage.
4. MTN: If an MTN line is barred, all the subscriber needs to do is visit nin.mtn.ng, to check the NIN status, and if not linked, proceed to link it. During the process, an OTP would be requested, as well as the NIN. After giving consent and submitting the NIN linking request, it will be done and the line will be automatically unbarred.
5. Smile: Send your valid NIN to [email protected] or call 07020444444, you will be asked to provide consent, and upon receipt of customer consent and successful verification of NIN, the line will be unbarred.
6. Spectranet: Call toll-free line 8002345678 and submit your NIN but will have to get your KYC done at Spectranet Store. Customer can email us at [email protected] and submit their NIN but will have to submit their KYC at Spectranet Store. Customer can go to the Spectranet website and submit their NIN online but to complete the process they will have to do KYC at the Spectranet Store.
7. Ntel: Customer should visit any Ntel store with their NIN, the fingerprint is used to call up their existing KYC profile with Ntel for verification, consent is received and the line is updated and unbarred.
“In case these online steps fail, subscribers can physically visit any walk-in centres of operators, to unblock their lines,” it said.