The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has advanced a cell utility that permits accepted business stakeholders to scan telephones’ Global Cell Apparatus Id (IMEI) numbers and add tool data to its verification platform. The regulator is stepping up efforts to put into effect apparatus approval necessities.
The fee introduced the improvement at a media briefing on Thursday when it stated the appliance is designed to simplify compliance for producers, importers, vendors and contact sellers.
The app bureaucracy a part of the NCC’s Device Checker initiative, which permits shoppers to test whether or not units have gained regulatory approval sooner than acquire. The fee says the broader platform is meant to assist curb the flow of counterfeit, cloned, unauthorised and different non-compliant units in Nigeria.
TechCabal’s analysis of the tool verification device on October 20, 2026, had tested how the rustic’s complicated telephone distribution community may complicate enforcement. Units transfer via producers, main importers, regional vendors and smaller outlets sooner than attaining shoppers, making it tricky to determine duty when a tool fails regulatory exams.
The brand new utility supplies an extra instrument for gathering tool data throughout this chain.
The Fee says its “user-friendly” Instrument Checker utility “allows accepted stakeholders to temporarily scan tool IMEIs and add data immediately to the platform.”
In observe, the app is meant to toughen potency and straightforwardness compliance for accepted stakeholders. This offers the fee a method to gather tool data from companies around the provide chain and test compliance with its Kind Approval necessities.
The regulator additionally reported growth in licensing and regularising telephone sellers in Kano State, along sensitisation engagements with importers and different business members in Lagos and somewhere else.
The actual measure is whether or not the app can assist the regulator hint non-compliant telephones again in the course of the provide chain.
