The Federal Government of Nigeria has suspended the sale of new SIM cards which has left many Nigerians without livelihoods, as it has forced small businessmen who worked as agents on streets for big telecommunication firms to either shut down or scale back on their activities. The decision has affected their revenue badly over the last 12 months and has made them layoff their staff. Last year, the Nigerian government ordered the suspension of the sales and activation of new SIM cards across all phone networks in the country as it directed Nigerians to quickly connect their phone lines to their National Identification Numbers (NIN). The suspension was expected to last till the completion of the NIN registration, but with the deadlines repeatedly shifting, many Nigerians have criticized the government for not making adequate provisions to handle crowds seeking physical registration at the time of the pandemic, small businesses that serve as agents for telecommunication firms have suffered the most, since this suspension order, life has not been very easy for some of the agents.
The truth is that it has affected those small scale businesses who sell and register SIM cards, their devices have been retrieved from them, others also lament, survival has been very difficult for them because that’s the only way they earn their little income to support their family and the way they survive is by registering SIM cards to get paid, but ever since they stopped registration feeding the family is becoming difficult.
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