On Monday, residents of Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, who are subscribed to MTN mobile, had a distressing experience at MTN offices in the city as they tried to unblock their SIM cards.
Our correspondent visited MTN offices on Murtala Muhammed Way and Fate roads (ShopRite) and found a large crowd of subscribers waiting to have their SIM cards restored by the limited MTN staff.
In interviews with our reporter, some of the affected subscribers urged MTN to utilize digital channels to enable millions of Nigerians affected by the SIM card blockage to easily recover their lines.
They expressed frustration and disappointment with the manual process, which has caused them inconvenience and disruption to their daily activities.
“It is archaic, time consuming and unacceptable to subject millions of Nigerians to days and endless queues to transact business which could be done digitally to such outmodeled harrowing experience,” one respondent told our correspondent.
A subscriber, Mr. Ismail Mohammed lamented how the blocked SIM, which serves as his hotlines has affected his business because he was not able to receive customers’ calls.
“I am demoralised at the moment. I just discovered that I could not call out again from my MTN line with a message that I should link my line with my NIN number in which I have done before at the MTN office.
“I lived at Oke-oyi and came to Ilorin as early as 6am with the hope that by 8:30 am I would have been done and returned back to work. But, I’m shocked with the crowd I met here at the MTN office, located along Post Office/Maraba Road.
“The MTN staff were calling us inside in batches at the beginning up till the time they told us that their system was down and asked us to go and come back later or visit another office,” he said.
Another user, Bello Olamilekan said, “I have been receiving messages few days ago saying I should link my NIN with SIM card line. Meanwhile I have done that twice and upon that they later blocked my SIM.
“I have been here since 6am and we were issued numbers to know when to enter the main office, but the arrangement has been disorganised.
“I came here from Odota, Airport Road. I have been to the Tanke and Taiwo MTN offices, people were many. They were not allowing us to enter again since 8am with the excuse that their system is down and nobody among the staff has given us the audience to know when to come back,” he said.
