The Federal Government has revived Nigeria’s digital postcode project more than 20 years after it was conceived and has begun integrating it with the National Identification Number as part of efforts to strengthen digital identity, improve service delivery and enhance address verification nationwide.
The initiative follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the National Identity Management Commission and the Nigerian Postal Service in Abuja on Friday.
The agreement, signed by the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, and the Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of NIPOST, Tola Odeyemi, formalises NIPOST’s integration into NIMC’s digital identity ecosystem.
The partnership is expected to expand access to identity services, strengthen identity verification and support the Federal Government’s digital transformation agenda through a secure, inclusive and interoperable digital identity system.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Coker-Odusote said both agencies had already begun integrating postcode retrieval into the NIN platform, enabling Nigerians to verify their addresses and retrieve their digital postcodes from a single trusted platform.
She said, “Our teams have collaborated to integrate postcode retrieval into the NIN platform, so that Nigerians will soon be able to confirm their address and retrieve their postcode through one trusted platform. This is designed to make access faster and more convenient for all Nigerians.”
According to her, the National Identification Number establishes who an individual is, while the National Postcode System establishes where the individual can reliably be reached.
She said, “Together, these two national assets create a powerful foundation for inclusive governance and digital transformation.”
The NIMC boss explained that aligning the national identity database with Nigeria’s postcode infrastructure would improve citizens’ access to government services, financial products, healthcare, education, emergency interventions, logistics, e-commerce and other essential services.
She added that the integration would strengthen planning, enhance transparency, improve beneficiary targeting and support more effective policy implementation across sectors.
Coker-Odusote disclosed that NIPOST had also been licensed as a front-end enrolment partner for the commission, allowing Nigerians to enrol for the National Identification Number at post offices nationwide.
She said, “The Postmaster General and I sat down a couple of months ago, and what we did was to give them an enrolment licence to make them a front-end partner. Nigerians who want to go to post offices can enrol there, and they will capture their details on our behalf.”
Describing the integration as transformative, she said the collaboration would create a national database containing verified identities linked to verified addresses and locations.
“This particular one that we’re also working on is a game changer for the country because now you have the verified identities of individuals with verified addresses and verified locations,” she said.
She further explained that the collaboration would improve address verification for financial institutions, government agencies and private businesses.
She said, “We are making sure that there’s accuracy when it comes to address verification, which will then make life easier for financial institutions, private sector companies and government agencies trying to confirm the address of an individual in this country.”
The NIMC Director-General also said the partnership would support Nigeria’s digital public infrastructure by linking identity, payments and data exchange, creating multiple use cases for the country’s digital economy.
On enforcement under the newly enacted NIMC Act 2026, she said the legislation had strengthened the commission’s powers to combat identity fraud.
She explained that although the commission now had expanded enforcement powers and could impose penalties, arrests would continue to be carried out in collaboration with security agencies, while prosecutions would involve the Federal Ministry of Justice.
Coker-Odusote also said the NIMC Act 2026 had ushered Nigeria into a new era of identity management by modernising the legal framework for digital identity and positioning the commission as the custodian of the country’s digital public infrastructure for identity and the root certification authority for the national public key infrastructure.
She noted that no single institution could build a resilient digital economy in isolation, stressing that trusted identity must be complemented by trusted location information.
In her remarks, Odeyemi described the digital postcode project as a solution to one of Nigeria’s longstanding addressing challenges.
She said the system would assign every standing structure in the country a unique, GIS-enabled, machine-readable location identifier.
“What we’re building actually gives a unique identifier to every single standing structure in Nigeria.
“We’re giving a unique GIS-enabled, machine-readable location identifier to every standing building in the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she said.
She explained that the initiative would effectively leapfrog traditional addressing systems and improve logistics, emergency response, planning and access to public services.
According to her, the partnership goes beyond integrating databases and is designed to create value for citizens by combining trusted identity with trusted location information.
She said, “Every modern economy depends on two critical capabilities: knowing who people are and knowing where they are. Identity gives people access; the postcode that we’re building gives service direction.”
Odeyemi disclosed that the national digital postcode project, first conceived in 2006, had received full Federal Government funding for the first time under the current administration.
She said, “The Nigerian Postal Service has been trying this project, I think, since 2006. This is the first time that this project has been fully funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
She added that the funding reflected the administration’s recognition of digital identity and national addressing as foundational infrastructure for inclusion and economic development.
“It took almost 20 years for this particular project because Mr President understands how foundational it is. Just as he has given NIMC a mandate to ensure the inclusion of everyone down to the most remote wards in Nigeria, we have also been given a mandate. Every Nigerian and every location are included.”
The MoU formalises NIPOST’s integration into NIMC’s digital identity ecosystem and reinforces the strategic partnership between both institutions to expand access to identity services, strengthen identity verification and improve service delivery nationwide.
The agreement reflects the shared commitment of both agencies to advancing a secure, inclusive and interoperable digital identity system in support of the Federal Government’s digital transformation agenda.
