The National Addressing Council (NAC) has ratified a preliminary framework for the actualisation of Nigeria’s vision of a digitised and modern addressing system. The decision was taken on Monday at a meeting of the council chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima in Abuja, with key government agencies and stakeholders from……
The National Addressing Council (NAC) has ratified a preliminary framework for the actualisation of Nigeria’s vision of a digitised and modern addressing system.
The decision was taken on Monday at a meeting of the council chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima in Abuja, with key government agencies and stakeholders from the public and private sectors in attendance.
Under the new arrangement, the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation will serve as the secretariat of the council to ensure greater efficiency and coordination, while relevant agencies will work together towards achieving the objectives of the framework.
This was contained in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications, Office of the Vice President, Stanley Nkwocha, on Tuesday, August 25.
Speaking at the meeting, Shettima said the initiative was aimed at creating an addressing system capable of supporting governance, businesses, security and social services across the country.
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“Under the Renewed Hope Agenda, our duty is to build institutions that match the energy and mobility of our people. We must build a system that locates every community, supports enterprise without barriers and strengthens government without compromising privacy,” the Vice President said.
Shettima said the objective was to ensure that every Nigerian, business and location could be identified within a trusted national framework.
“Our objective should be simple. For Nigerians to understand, wherever a citizen lives, wherever a business operates, wherever help is required, Nigeria should find the address. This is the standard before us and I am confident that the council will deliver,” he said.
The Vice President said the national addressing system must be designed to serve communities in rural areas as effectively as major cities, stressing that an address goes beyond describing a physical location.
“Address is more than just a description of where a person lives or where a business operates. It is a point of connection between the citizen and the state; between the enterprise and opportunity; between identity and service,” Shettima said.
He added that a country unable to consistently locate its citizens and businesses would face challenges in planning, commerce, security and social protection.
Shettima further directed relevant institutions to ensure that the digital addressing framework was interoperable with other national digital systems, particularly identity and government databases.
“When a verified identity can be linked securely to a verified address, the gains extend across financial inclusion, social interventions, logistics, planning and emergency response,” he said.
On institutional responsibilities, the Vice President said the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation would coordinate technical implementation, systems integration, interoperability and standards as the council’s secretariat.
He said the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) would be responsible for individual address verification and authentication, while the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) would support verification of business addresses.
“NIPOST remains indispensable for postcode administration and postal infrastructure,” Shettima added.
He also tasked states and local governments, working through the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), with driving implementation at the community level through local addressing and proof of address.
The Vice President said other institutions, including the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and organised private sector, must contribute their respective mandates.
“No institution can own a system whose usefulness depends on participation across our federation,” he said.
The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, described the initiative as fundamental to Nigeria’s economic transformation, saying the addressing system would provide a foundation for harnessing the potential of Nigerian entrepreneurs.
Tunji-Ojo expressed confidence that the initiative would also boost investor confidence in the country.
“I think also that if the news of this initiative goes out, there will be a lot of incidents in terms of investors, knowing fully well that it’s no more business as usual but business unusual. I want to encourage all members of Council; let’s give our best to this,” he said.
The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Kingsley Udeh, thanked Shettima for providing leadership in resolving disagreements among agencies involved in the addressing process.
Udeh said the council had moved from what he described as “crisis management” to coordination and collaboration.
“Before now, it was sort of crisis management but with coordination, we are now working as one nation and one people focused on doing this very critical assignment that should have been done decades ago – standardising address, proof of address and digital address,” he said.
The Director-General of NIMC, Abisoye Coker, also identified lack of coordination and disagreements among agencies as major challenges that had previously hindered the initiative.
She thanked the Vice President for ensuring the harmonisation of the agencies involved in the process.
The President of ALGON, Bello Lawal, said the initiative would have wide-ranging benefits for governance and development at the grassroots.
According to him, the addressing system “will improve national security, improve citizen identification, deepen financial inclusion, change planning and revenue generation at the local level and ensure that every Nigerian is accounted for within their local communities.”
The Special Assistant to the President on ICT Policy in the Office of the Vice President, Salihu Ibrahim-Dasuki, explained that the existing National Addressing Policy 2017 required revision due to institutional, statutory, constitutional and technological changes.
He said the existing framework was largely focused on mail delivery, postcodes and postal infrastructure, while some of its institutional provisions no longer reflected current governance realities.
“The existing framework focuses on mail delivery, postcodes and postal infrastructure. The framework also contains institutional misalignments. Responsibilities relating to citizen address verification are assigned to the National Bureau of Statistics,” Ibrahim-Dasuki said.
He added that business address verification had previously been excluded from the framework, while some council structures were anchored in former ministries that no longer reflected the country’s current governance structure.
The technical teams of NIPOST, NIMC and ALGON also made presentations at the meeting.
Among those present were the Chief Executive Officer of NDPC, Vincent Olatunji; Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi; Director-General of NGF, Abdullateef Shittu; Managing Director of PalmPay and representative of the Fintech Association of Nigeria, Chika Reginald Nwosu; Managing Director of OPay and representative of the Fintech Association of Nigeria, Maxwell Loko; Vice President of OPay, Olabode James; and Managing Director of Digital Addressing Platform, Olusola Sayeed Ayoola, among others.
