Former NIPOST CEO Bisi Adegbuyi has emphasized the need to remove any National Identification Number (NIN) from Nigeria’s identification database that lacks a physically verifiable address. In an interview on Thursday, Adegbuyi stressed that protecting Nigerians' data and addressing potential compromises necessitate this measure.
He commended Nigeria’s recent memorandum of understanding with the Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) but warned that without robust address verification, the initiative could fail. "Before integrating data, a multi-stakeholder approach is essential. We must clean up the NIMC identity ecosystem and ensure it is address-based. Any NIN not linked to a verifiable address should be removed from the database," he said.
Adegbuyi referenced a meeting between Bill Gates and the Nigerian President at the World Economic Forum, where Gates criticized Nigeria's fragmented identity system. Gates advocated for adopting MOSIP, inspired by India's successful Aadhaar system, which is the world’s largest end-to-end identity system.
However, Adegbuyi cautioned that merely adopting MOSIP without establishing physically verifiable addresses would be ineffective. He called for a "stress test" of the NIMC identity ecosystem, ensuring all linked addresses are verified by their coordinates.
He shared his vision of providing 102 billion three-meter by three-meter grid digital addresses to Nigerians, a project hindered by bureaucratic challenges during his tenure. Adegbuyi highlighted Nigeria's potential as a significant e-commerce market, emphasizing the importance of accurate address verification.
He also underscored the need for collaboration between NIMC and NIPOST, suggesting NIMC handle identity numbers while NIPOST manages digital address verification. "NIPOST is a crucial national infrastructure for the last mile. There must be synergy between NIMC and NIPOST. It's not rocket science. With MOSIP's technology and a comparative analysis of other identity systems, we can achieve this. I have the necessary technology—Agile, scalable, with a full application program interface," Adegbuyi concluded, emphasizing the importance of leveraging his international exposure and experience for Nigeria's benefit.
