I put my SIM card in the back of my phone where I usually keep it but couldn't find it when I wanted to use it. I lost this SIM card a day before yesterday when I wanted to use my special data SIM card for night browsing and safely hid it in my phone casing, but this morning it was nowhere to be found. Checked everywhere I could but still...
Now this isn't some backup SIM card, it was actually my main SIM. I had no cash on me so I had to borrow some immediately to do SIM swapping ASAP because I use the SIM to receive important calls as well as important notifications I didn't want to miss.
I set on foot because I had no cash on me due to its current scarcity in my country. The distance between where I stay to MTN office is up to 1.5km and I had to trek all the way. My feet was all dusty when I got there and I was already brimming with frustration because I had wanted do something else that morning. Fuelling further my frustration was the long queue I met and I was already starting to think of coming back the next day but said to myself I would rather die there than trek this same distance the next day. The people on the queue told some really sad stories on how their phones were stolen, hence them coming for SIM swapping, of course, a lot of them said that losing the SIM card was more painful than losing the phone but that's usually a lie some of them tell themselves so as not to sound too bothered about their phone been stolen...saying they cared more about the SIM..meh🙄.
After being on queue for about four hours, my turn finally came and my SIM pack was requested for, I didn't bring it along so I told them that. They asked for some ID which I provided and the next thing I hear after some profile checking made me wanna cry. The representative said I needed to update my passport as it wasn't showing on my profile so there's no means to verify it is actually me! After staying on queue for four hours this is what they are greeting my ears with!
I swear, I uploaded my passport when registering for my ID so I have no idea what he was talking about, obviously it was their fault not mine. I stormed out of the office and headed straight to a Secretariat that thankfully, wasn't far away from the MTN office. I was lucky to not have met a long queue there so I went straight to a slim, bearded middle-aged man to check my profile on his laptop. He checked and repeated what they told me in the MTN office, "your passport hasn't been uploaded." He then advised that I go to the NIN office to resolve the issue. I was like, "Hell no!" That place is no where near where I live, no the place I was at at that moment, and the tricycle riders here don't accept payment via bank transfer, Uber isn't so common here and I have never even used one before. I was depressed.
I gave up on my quest for SIM swapping. I came back home, took a bath and slept. I would have loved to do it yesterday but it wasn't possible, and it seems it wouldn't be possible anytime soon due to the issue with my ID.
