Senate Moves For Mobile Phones Registration

In a bid to put certain abuses of mobile phone services, the Nigerian Senate may soon come up with a law making it mandatory for the registration of mobile phone subscribers by every mobile phone service providers in the country.

A bill providing for that, sponsored by Senator George Thompson Sekibo ( Rivers East),  midweek, passed its second reading.

Leading the debate on the general principles of the bill, Senator Sekibo said the Bill, if passed into law, will sanitise the system, put criminals who use mobile lines to conduct their illegal businesses at bay and make users more responsible.

Though the lawmaker commended the advent of mobile phones saying the services have improved communications in the country she said mobile phones have been used to perpetrate criminal activities and atrocities that have posed great dangers to the society and had been difficult for security agencies to track down because the phones are not registered.

In his words, “the bill seeks to ensure responsible usage of any mobile number and services by the respective owners, and to prevent the occurrence of certain abuses of such services.

 ”The wide and free ownership of mobile phone numbers without stringent checks has brought with it a lot of disadvantages. Consequently, GSM phones are now being used to commit all manner of crimes and atrocities.

“The nefarious usage of mobile phones appear easy because mobile phone numbers are not registered by GSM service providers.

 The bill, therefore, seeks to ensure the proper registration of all owners of mobile phone numbers in the country by their service providers, in order to check illicit use of mobile phones and facilitate the bringing to justice any GSM subscribers that abuses the mobile phone number registered in his or her name.”

According to Senator Sekibo, the perpetrators of mobile phones crimes, sometimes hide their numbers to harass and intimidate victims saying, “At other times, the subscribers’ numbers are not hidden as they appear confident of going free after committing the crimes.

The proposed law will also check the usage of the phone services by foreigners resident in the country or visiting  as their phones registration would be linked  to  their International Passport for identification .

Contributing to the debate, Senator Abubakar Danso Sodangi noted that  its only in Nigeria that One  can just pick a SIM cardfrom the street without registering his personal data.

The bill was read a second time and referred to the Senate Committee on Communications for further investigation and recommendations.

  The two arms of the National Assembly, Wednesday, marked the end of this legislative year (2009/2010) and proceeded on a two-week, break. 

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja