By Stanley Iwuoha
Millions of subscribers, particularly of MTN extraction have cried out for disconnection from calls and internet services by telecom.ßervice providers.
This followed the expiration of the 28th February deadline for all subscribers to link their Sims to the National Identify Number, NIN.
The subscribers are lamenting that they were cut off from all services since the Wednesday expiration deadline.
Our findings shows that the outage, which began around 2pm on Wednesday afternoon has lasted more than six hours without an end in sight.
As of the time of filing this report, our correspondent confirmed that millions of Nigerians,m could neither make a call nor use the Internet with the MTN network.
Meanwhile, MTN has blamed the outage on fibre cuts, and confirmed that it suffered a glitch that has affected its services across the country.
As of 8pm on Wednesday night, MTN said there is no network for calls.
In a statement on social media, it blamed the service outage on multiple fibre cuts which affected voice and data services.
The giant telecommunications provider said its engineers were working to restore services.
“You have been experiencing challenges connecting to the network due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts, affecting voice and data services,” it said.
“Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and ask for your patience and understanding as the team works to restore full service as soon as possible.”
Recall that the Nigerian Communications Commission had yesterday ruled out an extension of the February 28, 2024 deadline for the linkage of Subscriber Identity Module cards to National Identification Numbers.
As a result, telecommunication companies have been directed to bar 12 million lines which have not been linked to the owners’ NINs after the expiration of the deadline.
The Director of Public Affairs, NCC, Reuben Mouka, who confirmed the development on Wednesday reaffirmed the NCC’s stance.
“We already issued a public notice in this regard and all the information. If there was an extension, NCC would have communicated that. But as far as I know, there is no extension,” he said.
It is left to be seen how fast the network disruption would be fixed by the telecom operator.
