The House of Representatives on Wednesday said it was forced
to summon the National Communications Commission when strange persons were
calling and messaging public office holders during the recent #EndSARS
protests.
The House stated that the identities of the owners of the
telephone lines could not be ascertained as the Subscriber Identification
Module cards used were not registered.
The NCC had threatened that SIM cards not linked to NIN
issued by the National Identity Management Commission 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 on Wednesday to demand more time for SIM
card owners to provide their NIN.
The motion was titled, ‘Need for the Nigerian Communications
Commission to give Nigerians reasonable time to submit their National
Identification Number for SIM Registration’.
Adopting the motion, the House resolved that the exercise
should end on January 28, 2021, as against the December 30, 2020, set by the
NCC.
Moving the motion, Elumelu disclosed how the House was
involved in the process.
He said, “Just yesterday (Tuesday), the NCC rolled out an
instruction and the instruction is actually based on what is happening in
Nigeria, rising from what happened during #EndSARS when hoodlums were using SIM
cards to abuse and terrorise people in (public) office without being able to
ascertain or track them.
“NCC was mandated that we should 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, and
then have a National Identification Number, and you will take it to the
(telecoms) service providers and they will register it.
“But, we did not envisage that having given that suggestion,
that they would now come and say ‘we are limiting this process to only two
weeks.’ Given the period that we are in, it will be almost impossible for 200
million Nigerians to meet the two weeks (deadline), hence this motion. The
motion is not saying that we are condemning it; it is strictly for NCC to
extend the two weeks.”
The Deputy Minority
Leader, Toby Okechukwu, called for amendment of the prayer to give the NCC a
specific time.
The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, however, noted that the
House already had a bill seeking synchronisation of all biometric data captured
by the agencies.
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Our ppl were not moved by calls from kidnappers but moved promptly by msgs from strange ppl.
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