The face off between the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the nation’s largest telecoms network MTN has taken a new dimension with the former suspending all forms of regulatory services to the later.
The Leadership said the NCC will enforce the service suspension until the mobile operator pays a fine of USD $5.2 billion in connection with unregistered SIM cards.
The reports revealed that the NCC said unregistered SIM cards “pose a grave security risk to the country” and used the recent kidnapping of the former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae, as an example of this risk. It said the kidnappers used MTN SIM cards and MTN was unable to provide any registration data for those SIMs.
The Leadership quoted an NCC document that stated: “MTN’s persistent violations” had forced the regulator to impose “the unprecedented sanction of suspending all regulatory services to MTN”. The NCC says MTN faces a rebuke for 28 accumulated infractions. This unprecedented fine is indicative of the magnitude of the transgression and the seriousness with which the NCC and the authorities are approaching this issue.
The NCC had said in the report that it is also more likely to ensure that the willful non-compliance by MTN ceases. The regulator alleges that MTN failed to comply with an NCC and security agencies directive to deactivate improperly registered subscribers within a seven-day deadline ending on 11 August.
