If you were among those whose SIM card was deactivated by MTN, it means you did not link your National Identity Number (NIN) to your MTN SIM card.
While you may be pained about the development, you may still be able to reactivate your line.
Due to this development, MTN has lost nothing less than 7.3 million subscribers.
About 7.3 million subscribers of MTN can no longer use their SIM to make calls or receive text messages.
This is because the owners of these SIM cards failed to comply with directives from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
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The NCC issued a directive in December 2023, that all SIM cards not linked with National Identification Numbers (NINs), be deactivated.
MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile, were to implement a full network barring on phone lines without NIN by February 28, 2024.
After deactivation, MTN experienced 7.3 million active subscriptions decline in January 2024.
Subscribers who provided their NINs but were not validated were threatened with complete deactivation.
Grace Period
The NCC threatened that unverified NINs with five or more connected lines would be deactivated by March 29, 2024.
Similarly, lines with fewer than five connections to an unverified NIN would be deactivated by April 15, 2024.
By January 2024, MTN’s active subscribers had dropped to 79.7 million from 87 million in December 2023.
According to data obtained from the NCC, this is a drop of approximately 7.3 million subscribers from MTN.
As of February 2024, about 4.3 million lines had been verified, while 4.2 million remained disconnected.
9mobile also experienced a decrease in subscriptions in January this year, with a decline of 135,788 to 13.7 million subscribers.
Despite the ongoing disconnection process, Airtel and Globacom observed slight growth in their monthly subscriber bases.
Airtel welcomed 767,887 new customers, increasing from 61.8 million in December of the previous year to 62.6 million in January.
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The number of subscribers in Globacom’s database increased by 321,869, reaching a total of 61.9 million in December. This indicates a growth in subscriptions.
