Nigeria’s telecom sector saw a major shake-up in 2024 as the National Identification Number and SIM linkage policy led to the removal of 59.7 million phone lines, the Nigerian Communications Commission said in its 2024 Subscriber and Network Performance Report.
Active voice subscriptions fell from 224.7 million in 2023 to 164.9 million by December 2024. This was a 26.6 percent drop, one of the sharpest corrections in recent years. The NCC said the fall came from removing SIMs without verified NINs and correcting an old subscriber count error by one major operator.
The policy, launched in February 2020, was designed to stop the criminal use of anonymous SIM cards, improve national security, and build a reliable identity database. After several deadline shifts, the final cut off date was 14 September 2024. From the next day, all SIMs without verified NINs were automatically deactivated.
Officials say it also supports better service delivery, financial inclusion, and digital payments. In September, President Bola Tinubu said over 126 million Nigerians had been enrolled in the National Identity Database. He also said the system had been expanded to take up to 250 million records for full coverage.
The NCC report said teledensity dropped from 103.66 percent in 2023 to 76.08 percent in 2024 because of the large scale clean up. Internet subscriptions also fell from 163.8 million to 139.3 million, a loss of 24.6 million users.
Even with the fall in numbers, the NCC said network coverage continued to grow. Nigeria reached more than 95 percent cellular coverage, while broadband penetration moved from 43.71 percent to 44.43 percent. The expansion was driven by wider access to 3G, 4G, and 5G services.
Fresh figures from the NCC show the industry is now recovering. Active telephone lines rose to 173.54 million in September 2025, up from 171.57 million in August. Internet subscriptions on GSM networks also increased to 140.36 million, and teledensity improved to 80.05 percent, showing renewed activity in the market.
