NIMC PORTAL CRASHES, BANKS, TELCOS, PASSPORT ISSUANCE SUFFER

Thousands of telecommunication subscribers nationwide seeking to retrieve their lost Subscriber Identity Module cards or acquire new lines temporarily have been left stranded, following a technical glitch in the National Identity Management Commission portal that has grounded SIM-related services.

The affected NIMC portal enables telecom firms, the Nigerian Immigration Service, banks and other organisations to verify the National Identity Number of their customers before attending to them, in line with the Federal Government’s directive.

Following the directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission for the inclusion of NIN in the requirements for all new and existing SIM cards, telecom firms are required to synchronise their SIM registration portals with the NIMC portal in order to verify the details of their subscribers.

DOWNTIME ENTERS SIXTH DAY, MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, 9MOBILE SUSPEND SIM REPLACEMENT/ACQUISITION

However, the downtime experienced over the past five days by the NIMC portal has made it almost impossible for telecom firms to sell new SIM cards or retrieve lost lines.

According to a source at MTN who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to speak on the matter, the downtime in the NIMC network which occurred late on Tuesday has brought SIM-related services to a halt.

The source said, “NIMC made it compulsory that before we can register a customer, we have to verify their NIN. The agency gave us a back route to its server. We connect to the server to verify NIN. When we verify, it will bring the record of the customer (the information the customer gave to NIMC while registering for NIN). We have to confirm the information the customer gave NIMC against what we have. There’s a way we connect to the NIMC server. It is that server that has been down since Wednesday.

In a chat with one of our correspondents, a top official at a Glo retail outlet, who also pleaded anonymity, confirmed that with the new directive by the NCC, all telcos are compulsorily required to verify the NIN details of all subscribers before registering their new SIM cards.

“The problem is with the NIMC server. Their server is down; we can’t connect with them. We don’t know when it will be back. All the telecoms (companies) have network but because of NIN verification, we can’t work. It is a Federal Government directive: without NIN, we can’t do anything. Even if you want to buy SIM and register, without NIN, you can’t do it.”

In the same vein, subscribers were seen at an Airtel office lamenting their inability to retrieve their GSM lines despite repeated attempts to do so during the week.

“The glitch at the NIMC portal affected passport application process during the week. There was a need to verify applicants NINs. This could not be done. It started since late on Tuesday,” an immigration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

 Also, top officials of some banks said the development affected account opening during the past week as applicants who had NIN as their only means of identification could not be attended to.