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Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), has no mandate to arrest those who use SIM cards for criminal activities, the NCC,’s Director of Zonal Operations, Amina Shehu has said.
Speaking in an interview with journalists at the ongoing Kaduna International Trade Fair, the director said NCC as a regulator was doing so much with regard to the security of lives and property of all Nigerians.
According to her, ” one of the fundamental things that we are doing is the SIM card registration…of which I’m sure all of us are aware of. I want to believe that all of us here might have registered SIM cards.
“This is because it is the SIM card you use to make the call. It is not the phone; our hand set…. A SIMcl card is registered if you have your name, your details in it. If you are captured …that is one of the crucial things that we are doing to assist the security operatives in trying to nab all these evil perpetrators.
“Well of course, you also understand that there are laws on the registration of SIM card. We have a department in the organization called compliance, monitoring and enforcement.That department is actually for enforcement and making sure that all networks or individuals that don’t register, or they register wrongly particularly if you register with an intent to perpetrate any of these…once we get hold of them.m, we do the needful. We work with the security operatives.
“Because we don’t have the mandate to do what the security operatives are doing, we do effective collaboration and partnership with the security operatives to nab some of these people who register wrongly. Some do multiple registration. Most of those who would ‘ve done that, would ‘ve done it may be with a bad intent.
“We work with the security operatives to ensure that we assist in ensuring that they are caught and when they are, we hand them over to the security operatives.
“It’s not within our mandate to do that. Ours is to ensure that registration of SIM cards are done. We ensure that we do the enforcement to nab them, to get them, and hand them to the security operatives.”
Answering question why there are pre-registered SIM cards in the markets she said: “Well, we are aware about all that. We made mention that we have zonal officers across the country where we make effective use of our zonal offices. Our staff are on ground; they are on hand. Their ears are down…to hear any of such areas where SIM CARDS are sold. They go there and they work with the security operatives to ensure that the people are caught.
