MTN Nigeria says it has disconnected 4.2 million lines from its network as the February 28 deadline for the linking of National Identification Numbers (NIN) with mobile SIMs expired.
The telecommunication company said the lines disconnected were those for which the subscribers did not submit their NIN. MTN disclosed this in its audited financial results released on Friday.
According to the company, since December 2023 when the NCC issued an industrywide directive requiring full barring of subscriber lines not linked to their NIN, it had subjected a total of 19 million lines to verification.
Out of these, it said 4.3 million have been verified and 4.2 million disconnected as of 28 February 2024.
The company, however, noted that the disconnected lines would not affect its revenue as the users were of low value.
“Several of these lines were low-value subscribers, minimizing the revenue impact. We are actively engaging the authorities to accelerate the NIN verification process.
“We have also increased our engagement with the affected customers, providing various channels for verification to minimize service disruption,” MTN stated.
Credit: Nairametrics
