The Federal Ministry of Education and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) have strengthened collaboration to integrate nearly 80 million learners into Nigeria’s national digital identity system as part of efforts to establish a unified identity database.
Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja while receiving the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, and her management team during a courtesy visit.
Alausa said the partnership aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which seeks to leverage technology to improve governance, transparency and public service delivery. He assured NIMC of the ministry’s full support in strengthening Nigeria’s identity management system.
The minister commended the commission for its progress in modernising the country’s identity infrastructure, describing its achievements under Coker-Odusote’s leadership as comparable to global best practices.
He noted that the recent signing of the new NIMC Act has provided a stronger legal framework for collaboration among ministries, departments and agencies in establishing a single, reliable national identity database.
According to Alausa, the education sector is one of Nigeria’s largest repositories of citizen data, with about 67 million learners currently enrolled in basic and post-basic education. He added that the figure rises to nearly 80 million when students in tertiary institutions and technical and vocational education are included.
The minister disclosed that the ministry has developed the National Learners’ Identification Number (NLIN), which is being aligned with the National Identification Number (NIN) to harmonise learner records with the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS).
He explained that integrating the systems would enable government to verify learners’ identities through biometric data, generate credible education statistics, eliminate duplicate records and strengthen evidence-based planning, monitoring and policy implementation.
Alausa reaffirmed the ministry’s commitment to supporting NIMC’s efforts to establish a single source of truth for identity management across the country.
Responding, Coker-Odusote praised the minister for reforms in the education sector, describing them as transformative. She assured the ministry of NIMC’s continued support in strengthening identity management across the education system.
She said the commission, as custodian of Nigeria’s identity database, remains committed to collaborating with the ministry to deepen digital identity integration and improve service delivery.
The partnership forms part of the Federal Government’s broader digital transformation agenda aimed at improving education planning, enhancing transparency in government interventions, strengthening data-driven policymaking and promoting interoperability across public sector databases.