The Nigerian government has directed all telecommunications operators in the country to discontinue the sale of unregistered SIM cards used in mobile phones, a senior official said Friday.
New SIM cards can’t be sold “without capturing the necessary data,” the News Agency of Nigeria reported Dora Akunyili, minister of communications, as saying in Abuja Thursday during a meeting with telecommunications operators.
The Nigerian Communications Commission, or NCC, in December announced that SIM card registration would begin in the country in March 2010 but postponed it to May 1.
It said SIM registration was part of efforts to curb crime in the country and would begin with new SIM cards purchased by new subscribers.
Akunyili said at a meeting with telecommunications operators in Abuja that some telecommunication operators were “resisting the registration of new SIM cards.”
“There is no going back on SIM card registration,” she said.