Eseoghene Ejidje, a resident of Warri, Delta State, has accused Airtel Nigeria of deactivating a Closed Users Group (CUG) SIM card he bought at the Airtel Service Centre, Warri, Delta State, on July 8 for no clear reason.

Ejidje told FIJ that he contacted the telecommunication company after one of the two SIM cards he bought on the said date suddenly stopped functioning and they told him to wait for three months for reactivation.

“I bought two CUG SIM cards for myself and my partner on July 8. I paid N1,000 for both SIM cards and subscribed for a month. After some days, the SIM card I gave my partner stopped working,” Ejidje said.

“When it stopped working on the morning of July 22, I immediately contacted Airtel’s customer service on their 111 care line to complain, but they told me that the line had been ‘churned’.

“The Airtel agent further said that lines can be ‘churned’ when the line has been inactive for 365 days. I told the agent that we had only used these SIM cards for three weeks and they had been functioning properly.’

Ejidje said he subsequently visited the Airtel Service Centre, where he bought the SIM cards, but was told that nothing could be done about the deactivation.

“The most absurd part of the incident is that both SIM cards still have an active subscription on them,” Ejidje said.

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Ejidje’s partner also told FIJ that the SIM card had remained inactive.

“The Airtel Service Centre here told us to return the SIM card to the shop we bought it from. After this, they told us to wait for three months to reactivate the line,” she said.

FIJ learned that a ‘churned’ SIM card is one that is no longer in existence.

“They said the phone number does not exist anymore,” she said.

When FIJ contacted Airtel Service Centre, a staff member, who simply identified as Gbenga, said the SIM card’s panel might have gone bad.

“Except the SIM goes bad, it shouldn’t be deactivated. Anything could have happened to the SIM card. The panel could have got spoilt due to the quality of the panels from mass production these days. Some of these SIM cards can malfunction,” he said.