IMEI: Nigerians’ Data Not Safe With Isa Pantami —Aisha Yesufu

Posted by African Examiner African News, Featured, Latest Headlines, News, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Friday, May 21st, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Popular Human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, says the data of Nigerians is not safe with the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, who already has a record of sympathising with terrorists.

Yesufu made this known when she spoke on Friday with The Punch as she reacted to a directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission that Nigerians will have to submit the International Mobile Equipment Identity of their phones to the commission from July.

Her words: “The minister of communications is a terrorist sympathiser even though he tries to deny it initially but when the overwhelming evidence of what he had done came out, he then said he did it in his younger age. Somebody in his late 30s was not a young person.

“Somebody who has sided with terrorist groups like Boko Haram now at the helm of affairs, I am not going to submit my details in his custody.

“He is not supposed to be the minister of communications; he ought to have been sacked right now. The terrorists have one of their own in such a sensitive place and I am not going to put my information in his care. Handing any information to him is not wise at all. He shouldn’t be at the helm of such sensitive ministry.”

The IMEI number is a 15-digit number unique to each phone and with it, a phone can be tracked and located no matter the cellular number in it.

According to the NCC, the move would allow it to curtail the counterfeit mobile phone market, discourage mobile phone theft, enhance National Security, protect consumer interest, increase revenue generation for the government, reduce the rate of kidnapping, mitigate the use of stolen phones for crime, and facilitate blocking or tracing of stolen mobile phones and other smart devices.