Despite numerous warnings by telco providers reminding Kenyans of their fate come the deadline of SIM reregistration in line with the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) requirements, it seems that a select few still managed to miss out on the exercise that was slated for Saturday, October 15, 2022.

Among the disgruntled Kenyans were a few bigwigs whose SIM cards were deactivated , taking to their social media accounts to express their disappointment, much to the dismay of Kenyans.

Vocal lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi popularly known as Grand Mullah was top of the list, vowing to ditch Safaricom after his line was switched off after his twenty five-year subscription.

"After 2 and half decades of being a loyal customer of @Safaricom_Care they unceremoniously switched off my line this Sunday...tomorrow I will move to one of the competitors and will never use their service again," he tweeted.

Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo in response to the tweet also shared that his SIM was deactivated as well, in what elicited  confusion as he did not understand why his line was unoperational.

""I suffered the same fate. It took a while to figure out that my line had been barred," Kilonzo stated.

Former Wajir Woman Rep Fatuma Gedi was next.

"Same with me Safaricom kwaheri," she responded 

Controversial Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei was quite disgruntled that his Safaricom line was off, calling for other network providers to challenge the dominance of the telco giant in the market.

"After 15years of having safaricom @SafaricomPLC lines they have decided to switch off their services today morning inconveniencing me.

We need a vibrant competitor to finish safaricom monopoly of communications, any options ?" he posed.

This evoked a myriad of reactions from a section of Kenyans , majority of whom castigated the lot for ignoring the reminders sent out by Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom  to register afresh , especially after the exercise was pushed six months from the initial April 15 deadline.

Further, the exercise had been made easier with USSD codes and online platforms issued to allow a subscriber to register on their own without visiting the telcos' customer care shops.

"You should be leading by example, you were given a lot of time to update your SIM card. Why couldn't you do it? You seem to be TOO LAZY mheshimiwa don't blame Safaricom," one Twitter user poked.

"We have elected leaders and other learned people failing to adhere to the set laws by regulating bodies yet expect special treatment. Why would a leader go on a witch-hunt against a private entity that is just enforcing rules set by the govt? You are wrong on this," another named Eduh G opined.

"I did mine in a record 20s using the safaricom online platform, Just your front and back snap shots of your ID and you good to go," another mentioned.

CAK on April 14 bowed to pressure and extended the SIM registration deadline to October 15, 2022, to allow more time for network operators and subscribers to comply with the directive after public outcry over the April 15 deadline.