The House of Representatives has admitted that it was forced to summon the National Communications Commission (NCC), when unknown people were calling and sending messages to public office holders during the recent #EndSARS protests.
The House on Wednesday, stated that the identities of the owners of the telephone lines could not be determined, as the sim cards used were not registered.
The NCC had threatened that SIM cards not linked to NIN issued by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) would be blocked.
However, the House called for an extension of the deadline issued to subscribers from two weeks to 10 weeks.
The Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, had moved a motion of urgent public importance at the plenary, to ask for more time for SIM card owners to provide their NIN.
Adopting the motion, the House resolved that the exercise should end on January 28, 2021 and not December 30, 2020, as initially set by the NCC.
Moving the motion, Elumelu disclosed how the House was involved in the process.
He said, “The instruction is based on what is happening in Nigeria, from what happened during #EndSARS when hoodlums were using SIM cards to abuse and terrorise people in (public) office and you could not track them.
“NCC was mandated to try as much as possible to ensure that all the service providers get all the SIM cards registered; and to first of all register with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), and then have a National Identification Number (NIN), and you will take it to the (telecoms) service providers and they will register it.”
