(L-R) Rose Okwechime, CEO, Abbey Building Society Plc, discussing with Ifeanyichukwu Ochonogor, chairman, at the 18th annual general meeting of the organisation recently in Lagos.

A push by Nigeria and 10 other African countries for mobile phone users to register   their numbers will curb the continent’s spectacular market growth of recent years and jeopardise the goal of telephone access for all.
Investigations also show that mobile operators are set for a short-term hit in revenues as many of poorer or more remote users struggle to produce the necessary documents and so risk being cut off.
Nigeria started May 1, this year to register all prepaid mobile phone users, who make up 97 to 99 per cent of the market on the continent, in order to boost national security and help fight phone-related crime. Other countries that have also started the
implementation of this policy include South Africa and Algeria while another nine nations, which include Kenya, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Ghana will follow suit later this year.
“The introduction of mandatory registration of SIM cards has resulted in a dramatic slowdown in subscriber growth in less than two months of its implementation,” a source in one of the operators said. “It will dent operators’ subscriber growth as it is being implemented but they will show growth again. Once it has come and gone, things will go back to normal again,” the source said.
The ease with which Africans can get a mobile phone number, picking up SIM cards and credit on the street with no need for documentation, has helped swell official user numbers from just one million in 1996 to around 350 million by the end of 2009, according to the United Nations.
But many on the continent have more than one SIM card, mainly to avoid the costs of calling one network from another. While African governments say the move will boost security and curb phone-related crime, some fear it will instead be used to monitor and crack down on opposition figures.
But analysts warn that producing documents, ranging from basic identity cards to also needing utility bills in some cases, could prove to be the biggest headache for millions on a continent where so many operate in the informal economy. The lack of ability or readiness of people to register their phones on time will curb their ability to communicate and limit newfound user access to money transfer and information services.