The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) is teaming up with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to link workers’ compensation data with their National Identity Numbers (NIN). This is set to tighten verification, reduce fraud, and make claims processing faster and more secure under the Employees’ Compensation Scheme (ECS).
NSITF’s Managing Director, Mr. Oluwaseun Faleye, announced the partnership during a visit to NIMC’s Director-General, Mrs. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, in Abuja.
Faleye said the new system will help NSITF confirm employee details quickly by tying each enrollee’s data to their NIN. “The partnership will help improve NSITF’s efficiency and enhance its processes as regards database management, thereby broadening social security,” he said.
He added that NIMC’s nationwide data collection will offer strong insights for the scheme and help improve service to injured or disabled workers.
Faleye also pointed to Nigeria’s growing reliance on the NIN for official processes, such as passport issuance, as a model for how employee data should be handled. “Today in Nigeria, to get a passport, your NIN must be verified. So we must adopt the same measure to seamlessly get adequate and accurate data of all employees under the scheme,” he noted.
By merging with the NIN system, NSITF hopes to better target not just ECS beneficiaries, but future social security efforts. Faleye believes this will ensure that the right people get support, while cutting down on identity fraud.
In response, Mrs. Odusote said NIMC is ready to move quickly. “We will definitely hand your IT team over to our own IT group so that they can collaborate and immediately form a working group together,” she said. She promised full integration within a week.
This isn’t the only progress NIMC has made. In May, Odusote revealed that the agency has reduced extortion during NIN enrollment by 40%. Over 120 million Nigerians have now been registered, thanks in part to support from the World Bank’s ID4D project.
This NSITF-NIMC collaboration how Nigeria plans to handle employee claims. The goal is that it should be faster, cleaner, and fairer for all.
