impossible to swap SIM

My phone was ****** because I was ******, and I visited multiple MTN stores (La Lucia, Musgrave, Hyper) to attempt swapping my old number onto a new SIM card. The first agent gave me a SIM, but said the system was down and that I should try later to complete the swap. I visited a second agent later that day, and he reported that the system had been down for THREE days already and that I should try \later