Airtel Nigeria has reported that 9.2 million of its customers have submitted their National Identification Number (NIN) for verification in compliance with the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) directive. The deadline for linking NIN to phone lines is set for February 28, with the risk of full network barring for unlinked lines.
In its nine-month financial statement, Airtel Africa, the parent company, revealed that 4.5 million customers have already been verified since the directive was issued in December 2023. While Airtel Nigeria emphasized that the number of unverified customers is not expected to significantly impact its revenue, it assured ongoing collaboration with the NCC to minimize service disruption.
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To address potential challenges and adhere to the NCC’s directive, Airtel Nigeria is actively engaged in the verification process for the remaining 9.2 million customers. The company expressed commitment to working closely with authorities to expedite the verification process and reduce the risk of service disruption while mitigating the impact on revenue.
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The NCC’s directive, issued in December 2023, mandates mobile network operators to fully bar phone lines lacking linked NINs by February 28, 2024. Additionally, lines with submitted but unverified NINs face full barring by March 29, 2024 (for five or more linked lines) and April 15, 2024 (for less than five linked lines). All affected subscribers must undergo biometric and biodata verification before lines are unbarred.
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Anticipating possible loss of customers due to non-compliance, mobile network operators, including Airtel, may experience a decline in their databases after the February deadline. The industry has witnessed fluctuations in subscriptions since the initiation of the mandatory NIN-SIM Linkage exercise in December 2020, with operators recovering some losses as more Nigerians registered for NIN, resulting in over 200 million active subscriptions across the four mobile networks as of August.
