The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has engaged civil servants involved in government digital systems on the development of the National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System, seeking their input on how the infrastructure can improve public service delivery.
The Postmaster-General of NIPOST, Tola Odeyemi, said the initiative was aimed at creating a reliable national location layer through which homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, farms and public offices could be uniquely identified and referenced in digital systems.
Odeyemi spoke at a session on “Beyond the Postcode: Building Smarter Government with Location Data,” where she said accurate location data was critical to effective government planning and service delivery.
She said activities such as delivering government services, responding to emergencies, siting schools and health centres, targeting interventions and deciding where infrastructure investments should go all depended on knowing precisely where people, services and assets were located.
According to her, such information was often incomplete, inconsistent or missing, making effective decision-making more difficult.
Odeyemi said while postcodes were traditionally associated with mail delivery, location data had become increasingly important to e-commerce, financial services, emergency response, urban planning and other sectors.
She said the national digital postcode system would provide a means of answering critical questions, including where beneficiaries of government programmes lived, which communities health facilities served and the precise location of emergencies.
The Postmaster-General added that the system could also help government identify gaps in roads, power and water infrastructure requiring investment.
Odeyemi said NIPOST engaged the DevsInGovernment community because its members build and operate digital systems within government and would be important to integrating the national location infrastructure into platforms used by agencies and citizens.
She described the session as a co-creation exercise, urging the participants to challenge assumptions, explore possibilities and contribute ideas on how a reliable national location layer could improve the systems they build and support.
She added that some of the most valuable applications of the infrastructure could emerge from the discussions and collaborations with the civil servants working