(Former Postmaster-General of the Federation, Bisi Adegbuyi. Photo Credit: Punch News)
Bisi Adegbuyi, the former Postmaster-General of the Federation, has urged the Federal Government to leverage the recent collaboration between the National Identity Management Commission and the Nigerian Postal Service to create a national address system that connects every National Identification Number to a verified physical location.
He noted that, while Nigeria has made significant investments in digital identity through the National Identity Number, the system is restricted if government agencies are unable to reliably ascertain the location of individuals, organizations, and public assets.
In a policy paper released on Monday, Adegbuyi stated that the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between NIMC and NIPOST should be expanded beyond the development of a national postcode framework to include a broader digital addressing infrastructure that integrates identity, location, and public service delivery.
“Identity reveals who. The location determines where. “A functional digital society necessitates credible answers to both questions,” he said.
According to the former postal chief, the distinction is essential because postcodes only identify geographical areas, not specific persons or buildings.
He contended that merging location intelligence with identification records would improve planning, service delivery, and allow government institutions to verify addresses more reliably.
According to him, millions of address records collected during NIN enrolment served as the foundation for such a system.
Rather than waiting for a nationwide postcode deployment, he claimed that such records could be standardised, geocoded, and checked to produce a reliable national location database.
“When the identity holder can be connected, with measurable confidence, to a real-world location, a national identity system becomes considerably more useful,” he stated.
Adegbuyi said that during his time there, NIPOST had tried a similar strategy.
According to him, the organization created an Address Verification System and a Digital Addressing System to integrate digital coordinates, physical addresses, and identity verification into a single platform for both commercial and governmental use.
He mentioned that after the idea received the 2018 World Summit on the Information Society Prize, talks about linking the platform with the National Identity Number database were initiated with NIMC.
However, he said that the suggested integration was never carried out in its entirety.
He suggested a scenario in which NIMC would handle identity-linked address verification while NIPOST would continue to oversee the nation’s official postcode system, contending that the two organizations have complementing rather than conflicting duties.
“The official postcode is provided by NIPOST. The relationship of trusted identity is provided by NIMC.
The information between them is connected, resolved, and continuously improved by address intelligence, he stated.
Beyond identity management, Adegbuyi claimed that by enabling government agencies to precisely identify individuals, companies, and infrastructure, verified location data may enhance policing, emergency response, tax administration, social investment programs, and logistics.
Additionally, he connected the concept to local government administration, stating that in order to build infrastructure, handle property records, increase domestically produced revenue, and provide basic services, councils need accurate geographic data.
Adegbuyi went on to say that the nation’s long-term economic goals will depend on both increasing the coverage of digital identities and digitally mapping productive assets throughout the nation.
He stated, “Nigeria’s ambition should extend beyond connecting the NIN to a postcode,” adding that companies, markets, transportation corridors, and farms should also be included in a comprehensive national digital location system.
He called on the federal government to support domestic innovation in digital mapping technology and provide local governments with the resources they require to keep precise location data.
He claims that the problem has grown beyond postal administration to a more general governance issue that calls for concerted institutional intervention.
“Nigeria’s addressing challenge is not merely a postal problem. It is an identity problem, a security problem, a local government capacity problem and increasingly, a national trust problem,” he stated.