By Adekunle Adekoya

A little over a week ago, fresh controversy erupted in the public domain about an exercise whose outcome the nation is awaiting – SIM card registration.

The controversy centred around delays in the outcome of the exercise, especially as some networks keep sending messages to their subscribers (who had registered) that their SIM cards had not been registered.

Actually recipients of such messages who had registered their lines would be astounded, leading them to wonder what had happened to the information given while the exercise was on.

However, the interesting aspect of the controversy is the announcement by the House of Representatives Communications Committee chairman, Hon. Oyetunde Ojo that his committee will probe the SIM Card Registration Exercise, for which a princely N6.2 billion was appropriated last year.

Of course, the lawmakers have every right to do what they wish to do in exercise of their oversight mandate, but it would be better if the regulator is allowed to announce completion of the exercise, and then, we take things up.

It will be recalled that the need for the exercise was driven principally by security issues and the desire of the nation to bring the national economy into the 21st century. Secure identity management is a sine qua non for these.

However, let it be borne in mind that things which are taken for granted in other climes, such as census, voters’ registration and others become big, controversial issues here chiefly because of our nature as a group of peoples with interests that serially conflict with the overriding national purpose.

For instance, the National Population Commission conducted a head count in 2006; provisional results were released in Jan 2007, while final results were released later. In all, it took about 18 months to get the results of the census, and the figures are still in dispute; some states, like Lagos, have petitions at the census tribunal.

As far as censuses go, controversy might remain the name of the exercise, again, because of our diversity and the interests spawned by such diversity.

No less different is the voters’ registration exercise, another kind of head count which has always had its own controversies as well. As far as that goes, what the whole of Nigeria slept on between 2010 and 2011 in the run-up to the general elections was the fact that nearly N70 billion was appropriated for INEC to register voters, at the end of which some 66 million voters were captured.

There was no call ( at least none loud enough) to probe voters’ registration, perhaps because that exercise was firmly domiciled in the political arena.

It should be noted that the SIM card and voters registration are nearly the same thing; the difference is that INEC printed out a voters’ card. In both cases both bodies procured DDC machines and captured biometrics. While INEC used ad-hoc staff to do its own, NCC outsourced the exercise to consultants in the six geo-political zones.

The issue here is that as yet, the SIM card registration exercise has not been completed, as outcome of harmonisation of captured data is still being awaited.

All that talk about incompatible format and the rest are technical details being used to gull people into believing what those with the motive want them to believe. Until the exercise is completed, the grounds for a probe would be as firm as quicksand.