Last week Monday was indeed, a very sad one for Oliver Ochinanwata, an auto dealer in the Abule-Egba area of Lagos. He had left his home very early in the day with the aim of updating his MTN SIM card registration at the designated centre in the area before facing other businesses of the day. But to his utter surprise, by the time he arrived the outlet, just a few minutes to 8:00 am, a mammoth crowd had already gathered at the centre for the same reason such that he was number 700 for the day. At about 12:30 when he began to vent his frustration, the number had grown to about 800. It was his second time at that centre within a space of one week, yet, there was no hope of updating his details that day as requested by the network operator. That is the level of stress most MTN subscribers have to go through to update their details.

Out of frustration, he yelled out, "This MTN people are wicked! I have been here since morning. I am here to update my registration for the fourth time. And I'm here again because MTN would not allow me to have peace." He had earlier registered the line in Lagos; thereafter he updated it twice in Enugu before the current exercise began.

The businessman's frustration was heightened by the fact that since 2001 when he purchased the SIM card at a cost of N30, 000 it has remained his major line for foreign and local transactions. In addition to that, at a time he was supposed to be manning his business, he was making frantic efforts to avoid a situation where his line will be deactivated by the network operator. He had suffered the same fate after one of the previous registrations he made in Enugu.

Like several other subscribers, who received numerous text messages from MTN requesting them to visit any of its centres with a valid means of identification to update their details including fingerprints and photographs, Ochinanwata also received from MTN, a motivating text message offering him N5, 000 worth of airtime that was to be activated upon the completion of the registration with a validity period of seven days. But as mouthwatering as that offer appears to be, the businessman had no interest in it whatsoever. For MTN and this subscriber, the worst is yet to come. In the event that his line was barred before he completes the process, Ochinanwata said he would smash the SIM and throw it away. "I can always get across to my contacts and give them my new line," he said in a fit of anger, believing that MTN was deliberately making life difficult for him and other subscribers.

Mascot Oyakhibo, another subscriber told the magazine at another MTN outlet that should the network provider deactivate his line, he would discard the SIM card. The reason is that he does not have the time to queue for several hours just to re-register a SIM card he had earlier registered. Oyakhibo had previously carried out a similar action against a mobile network. "I' m ready to update my line but I don't have the long time to spend in MTN office," he explained. The reason is that he resumes work by 7am and closes late. Around the Ijaiye area of Lagos where he resides, MTN centres are not opened to customers on Sundays, the only day in the week left for him to perform the update.

The sitting arrangement at the Abule-Egba service centre could only accommodate about 10 per cent of the total number of people that gathered there. Virtually everyone that gathered there was moody as they narrated their experiences. Many of them had arrived the centre as early as 6:00 am but still met people on ground. With about seven stands where registration was being carried out by MTN ad-hoc staff, many people who could not stand the stress left the venue even as more people kept coming. Uniformed men from a private security firm were deployed, apparently for crowd control, yet the fear of stampede was strong. At the Ojodu-Berger office of MTN, the situation was the same. Hundreds of people gather on daily basis after receiving persistent messages from MTN to visit one of the centres to update their details and many end up getting frustrated. Virtually all the subscribers who throng these centres had at one time or the other registered their lines beginning with the period the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, directed that all SIM cards should be registered.

For Sunday Ezikiel Makinde, a retiree who uses his MTN line to communicate with his pension and insurance managers, it will not be difficult to ditch MTN if it becomes impossible for him to do the update before the January 31 deadline being advertised by the network operator. He claimed to have updated his details twice at the same outlet between August and December last year. The retiree who grumbled that the process was tedious judging by his experience with other networks where he had also updated his other lines said, "This hardship is peculiar to MTN because they like to make life miserable for Nigerians. I may just have to allow them block it and dump the line and stick to other networks."

Even though there could be some misconceptions, the discontent is widespread. "I had updated this line twice before now and even got a confirmation text message from MTN; now they are bombarding me with text messages to go and update the same line. The stress is too much. I have been trying to update the line for the past one week but could not because of the number of people at their offices," said Osilama Idegun, another subscriber who threatened to sue MTN in the event that his line was blocked.

Between last December and the second week of January, Idegun received a plethora of messages. One of them read: "Please visit any MTN outlet to update registration. You have been compensated with N20, 000 to be used after registration, valid for seven days. Dial *559*40# to confirm. Pls. ignore if you registered this week." Similar to this message are the ones that direct subscribers to any of the special centres opened specifically for this purpose. MTN had recruited about 8, 000 ad-hoc staff for the purpose of re-registering its subscribers. The centres are open from 7:00 am to 10:00pm every day including Saturdays and Sundays.

What obtains at the special centres visited by our reporters is totally different from the situation at the regular MTN outlets. For instance, at TOOL Events Center, one of the designated centres located on Toyin Street in Ikeja last week, about 46 attendants were found seating idle and chatting. The environment was relatively friendly with music to entertain the very few people that came for the exercise. Some of the attendants could not explain the reason for the relatively low turnout but it was observed that MTN officials sometimes send out buses to bring-in subscribers from nearby outlets to update their lines at the special centres.

In Lagos alone, the centres are in Falomo, Oshodi, Ipaja, Ikeja and Festac among others. The mega centres are also spread across state capital and major cities. There are well over 50 attendants at some of the mega centres visited like the Amen Centre in Abesan Estate, Ipaja. That has to a large extent simplified the process as promised by Lynda Saint-Nwafor, chief Technical Officer, MTN Nigeria. She had through media campaigns apologised to customers and assured that the process had been streamlined to make the exercise quicker and easier. Apart from pacifying its customers, who are justifiably angry with air time rewards, MTN is also running a huge media campaign to sensitise subscribers. But in a curious twist, beneficiaries of the free air time are alarmed by the rate at which compensation bonuses worth between N5, 000 and N20, 000 are being exhausted in a matter of days. "The free credit is a fraud. It didn't last beyond three days," said Inyan King, a subscriber who received N5, 000 as compensation after the re-registration exercise.

But the question many of the subscribers have been asking, especially those that have registered their SIM cards a number of times, is what really happened to the initial registration of SIM cards as directed by the NCC. "There are strong indications that MTN data storage server crashed. That prompted them to request for the information that they lost. Now, they face the liability of not backing up their data using the new improved cloud services. A lot of unhealthy ‘beefs' exist in the telecom space in Nigeria and the idea of infrastructure cooperation is a major setback for corporate coexistence and growth in the industry," said a telecommunications engineer. However, the magazine could not confirm this from MTN as calls and messages put across to Funsho Aina, one of its corporate communications staff were ignored.

But Deolu Ogunbanjo, president, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, NATCOMS, lays the blame on SIM card registration agencies that did not carry out their functions in a professional manner. He said the registrations were done in a shoddy manner, and that was why many data were not captured. Said he, "These agencies were out to make their money and were just doing things shabbily and shoddily, there were all sort of malpractices, so it was obvious that what should now be done is to start due registration with due diligence." But other network operators had similar registration process.

Now, MTN is on the brink. There are fears that it may lose many of its customers who are currently disgusted with its perceived lacklustre approach to the entire SIM card registration exercise, which other network operators carried out seamlessly. That will also translate to loss of its prime position as market leader and by extension, job losses. In that case, Nigerians would be at the receiving end as many of the company's employees may be thrown into the labour market. As at last year, MTN subscriber base was in the region of 64 million compared to Globacom's 28. 2 million, Airtel's 27.5 million and Etisalat's 21.1 million. A shrink in MTN's subscriber base will also affect its bottom-line in which case, some of its corporate social responsibility projects may also be affected.

The current SIM card logjam is a fallout of the $5.2 billion (about N1.04 trillion) fine imposed on MTN by the NCC last November for failing to deactivate subscribers with incomplete details. Even though the operator was said to have committed several infractions, the penalty was considered outrageous by many stakeholders. It is estimated that the amount is about three to four times, the annual returns of MTN. That is not the only challenge the telecom giant is currently facing in Nigeria. The reason advanced for this is that the fine, if paid, is capable of crippling the telecoms company. In August last year, all the mobile network operators in the country were made to deactivated SIM cards with incomplete details as concerns grew over the use of such lines to perpetrate crimes of various dimensions. MTN's partial compliance eventually incurred the wrath of the regulatory body. Although the crisis eventually resulted in the resignation of Sifiso Dabengwa, president and chief executive officer, MTN Group,

•Being excerpt of a TELL report.

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