Nigeria’s new phone tracking policy could price millions offline

Nigeria is moving to make every mobile phone in the country traceable through the Nigerian Communications Commission’s Device Management System (DMS). By requiring SIM-enabled devices to be registered via their International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers before sale or network connection, the system aims to weed out stolen, cloned, and unapproved imports—bringing unprecedented oversight to a traditionally informal market.

Yet the policy poses a critical question: how much regulation can the device market absorb before consumers bear the cost? While the NCC targets smugglers, tighter controls threaten to squeeze legitimate importers, small-scale traders, repair shops, and consumers already grappling with high smartphone prices.

The stakes extend far beyond telecom compliance. In Nigeria, where mobile devices are the primary gateway to the internet, device costs directly dictate digital access. According to research by the GSM Association, more than 140 million Nigerians lived in areas with 3G, 4G, or 5G coverage but did not use mobile internet in 2025, largely because they could not afford an internet-enabled smartphone or lacked the digital skills to use one.

Today, a phone is no longer merely a communications device. It is a bank branch, an identity document, a point-of-sale terminal, a schoolbook, a work tool, and an entry point into the digital economy. Consequently, any policy that changes the cost or availability of devices sends shockwaves through the entire digital economy, far beyond telecom regulation.

What the DMS does

Under the DMS framework, licensed importers must secure NCC type-approval, upload IMEI numbers and purchase invoices to the DMS portal, pay a validation fee, and obtain a pre-authorisation QR code. This document is then verified by the Nigeria Customs Service for duty assessment before the device is whitelisted for network use.

The first phase focuses on registering existing stock and onboarding devices imported from now on. The NCC has said phones that are not duly registered will not be permitted to operate on Nigerian networks.

“By establishing a central registry of the International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers of devices in Nigeria, the commission will be better positioned to ensure effective and efficient compliance with its Type Approval requirements,” explained Edoyemi Ogoh, NCC’s director of technical standards and network integrity.

He said the registry would also ensure that devices imported, sold and used in Nigeria meet the required standards.

The NCC has sought to distinguish device identification from surveillance. It says the platform will retain device information, including IMEI numbers, but will not give the regulator access to the contents of a person’s phone or private communications.

The affordability question

The more immediate concern for consumers is price. The commission has discussed administrative validation charges of about ₦670 ($0.51) per IMEI for lower-cost or feature devices and slightly above ₦3,700 ($2.80) for high-end devices. The fees may look modest next to the price of a premium handset. But in a market where a few thousand naira can determine whether someone buys a basic phone, an older used device, or nothing at all, every naira counts in a tight market.

Already, market realities have pushed prices up: budget phones have climbed from ₦50,000–₦100,000 to ₦75,000–₦150,000; mid-range devices from ₦180,000–₦350,000 to ₦250,000–₦500,000; and premium handsets now exceed ₦1 million ($751). Though macroeconomic pressures, such as inflation, FX volatility, and shipping costs, drive these hikes independently of the un-enforced DMS, the new fees land in an already strained supply chain.

The DMS charge does not explain those increases, since enforcement is yet to begin. Exchange-rate volatility, global component costs, shipping, taxes, logistics and weak consumer purchasing power have all pushed handset prices higher. Still, the new charge will enter a supply chain that already carries multiple costs.

A senior official involved in stakeholder engagements around the system, who requested anonymity to speak freely, argued that the fee itself should not be the main concern because importers, rather than retailers or consumers, would pay it. On an expensive device, the official said that ₦3,700 should not materially affect the final retail price.

The bigger concern, the official said, is that importers could use the new charge to justify much larger increases.

“The fear of the retailers [is] that the importers would not transfer that exact cost,” the official said. “When the importer pays the ₦3,700 for a device, he would then add ₦15,000 ($11.28) to the price of the device or ₦20,000 ($15.05).”

In an inflationary economy, a new charge does not always reach consumers on a one-for-one basis. Businesses can add margins to account for uncertainty, foreign-exchange risk, financing costs, or market power. For consumers, the distinction between a ₦3,700 regulatory charge and a ₦20,000 ($15.05) increase matters little if both appear in the final price.

Formalising imports

The government’s interest in the DMS goes beyond consumer protection. It also wants better visibility into the hard-to-measure trade in mobile devices entering Nigeria through informal channels.

Small dealers can carry several phones in their personal luggage from markets in Dubai or China. Informal networks can move larger volumes of goods through routes that do not always leave a complete paper trail. Once a phone reaches a retailer and is paired with a registered SIM, it can be difficult for consumers to distinguish it from a handset imported through official channels.

The DMS is meant to disrupt that process. By requiring a device identity and invoice information before a phone can be cleared and activated, the system would make an unregistered phone less commercially useful if it could not connect to Nigerian networks.

A spokesperson for the Nigeria Customs Service told TechCabal that the system could close loopholes that have allowed devices to enter without proper declaration.

“With this new policy from the NCC, that will be a thing of the past,” the spokesperson said. “We are working with the NCC to make sure it is successful.”

If it works as intended, the DMS would bring together three parts of the device trade that have often operated with gaps between them: importers, Customs, and mobile networks.

An official involved in stakeholder discussions said that many importers do not declare the full number or value of devices entering the country,, and that the new system would force closer alignment among IMEI records, invoices,, and Customs declarations. That account, made during regulatory consultations, requires independent validation through Customs data.

For the NCC, the DMS is a way to formalise a sector that has operated in the shadows for too long. For Customs, it could improve the integrity of import declarations. Licensed distributors could gain by narrowing the advantage enjoyed by competitors who avoid duties and other requirements.

For smaller businesses, however, the change could feel less like formalisation and more like exclusion.

The informal-market test

Nigeria’s device market depends on more than multinational manufacturers and established distributors. It includes traders, repair technicians, refurbishers and micro-importers. Some bring in only a handful of devices at a time. Others source used phones through personal contacts or keep older handsets in circulation by repairing them.

The NCC’s position is that small scale does not remove the need for compliance. Anyone trading in communications devices is expected to have the appropriate licence, regardless of volume. The commission has allowed a window for existing stock to be registered and for businesses to regularise their status before full enforcement takes effect.

But those obligations may be much easier for large importers to absorb than for traders operating on thin margins.

Used and repaired phones present another complication. The DMS does not prohibit lawful transfers of ownership, but repairs can affect a device’s technical identity. A legitimate repair that changes a phone’s IMEI could cause problems if the resulting identity is treated as suspicious or unrecognised.

Is the registry needed?

Diseye Isoun, chief executive of Content Oasis, an internet service provider, believes the DMS may be attempting to solve several separate problems with a single mechanism.

“There is already what I believe is a relatively effective SIM registration regime in the country,” he said. “All phones have an IMEI, and all phones have a SIM that is tied to a specific individual and any number of all the information required by the telcos to collect when you issue a SIM.”

Isoun does not argue that Customs enforcement or device standards are unnecessary. Instead, he believes questions around taxes, import declarations and device regulation should be separated.

“There are passive ways in which NCC can collect information on what phones are being used as we speak, without any additional intervention,” he said. “What phones are being used, what companies, what models, what brand of phone is being used—all of that can already be done with the existing structures.”

His broader objection is institutional: the fight against under-declaration, he argued, belongs primarily to agencies responsible for imports and border controls.

“This battle of importers is not a battle for NCC to fight,” Isoun said. “It is a battle that the importation agencies of Nigeria should be dealing with.”

The critique goes to the heart of the policy challenge. The NCC has a clear mandate to regulate communications equipment and ensure type approval. It also aims to prevent cloned and non-compliant devices from undermining network performance and consumer trust.

But device supply chains are also Customs, tax, and consumer-access supply chains. A system can be technically sound yet create fresh problems if it does not provide workable pathways for smaller businesses and consumers.

The implementation test

The NCC says the DMS is not intended to create another barrier but to automate existing compliance requirements. It says the framework is anchored in Type Approval Business Rules issued in August 2024 and provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act requiring relevant manufacturers, suppliers and providers to obtain approval before communications equipment is sold or used.

The commission has phased the rollout as stakeholder consultations exposed implementation gaps. Officials said existing stock would not be subject to the device-validation fee during the onboarding period. Those adjustments suggest that the regulator recognises the risk of disruption.

But difficult questions remain. What happens when an imported device is rejected after shipment? How will consumers handle used phones with unclear histories? What happens when a legitimate repair affects a device’s identity? And who bears the loss when a phone is blocked by mistake or because an imported unit carries a cloned IMEI?

The DMS will ultimately be judged not by how many phones it registers, but by whether it can reduce illegal imports and counterfeit devices without making it harder to buy, sell, and repair legitimate phones.

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