Telecoms giant apologizes to customers

One of Nigeria’s leading telecommunications companies, MTN Nigeria has apologized to its customers for the obvious congestion at its service outlets where customers are validating their SIM cards even after already registering said SIMs previously.

MTN, along with other telecoms companies, had been fined by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for refusing to deactivate all existing pre-registered and invalid SIMs.

MTN Corporate Services executive, Akinwale Goodluck, said the Nigerian telecoms company was doing everything within its power to make the situation easier on customers.

"We wish to apologise to all our customers who are experiencing difficulty with the ongoing SIM registration/revalidation exercise. Affected customers can revalidate their registration details at all MTN sales outlets including the nearest agent and dealer shops.

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We appeal for calm as customers visit our various outlets. We are committed to ensuring that all affected subscribers complete the process as directed by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC). It is for this reason that we have increased the number of staff handling SIM registration/validation across all our channels. We have also mandated all our registration outlets to remain open till 8pm every day until further notice," said Goodluck.

According to Nigerian CommunicationsWeek, Goodluck also added that the company’s decision to deactivate all lines with invalid or incomplete registration was so it could comply with the NCC directive and possibly avoid another hefty fine.

He also added that registration is free and urged customers to report suspicions of any fraudulent activity to the nearest MTN manager at the respective location.