Creditworthiness scheme and NIN

The Bola Tinubu administration has, through several policy measures, demonstrated commendable interest in extending credit facilities to the youth and needy to promote financial inclusion.

The first was the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, which was inaugurated in 2024. It was created to offer indigent students of tertiary institutions interest-free loans which would be repaid after graduation. Though the Fund later ran into controversies over alleged corruption, it had as at May 2025, disbursed about N57bn to almost 299,000 beneficiaries.

The president is set to roll out another credit scheme which will be used to measure the creditworthiness of Nigerians. According to the National Orientation Agency, NOA, which has been pushing public awareness over this, the scheme will be administered by the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, CREDICORP.

Nigerians will be required to register online and link their National Identification Number, NIN, to their credit scores. A credit score of between 300 and 850 will reflect an individual’s creditworthiness, with the most creditworthy scoring closer to the highest mark.

We find this idea a very exciting and welcome development. It shows that the Tinubu administration is thinking of new ways to extend government benefits directly to the citizens. We strongly believe that a scheme like this should be all-inclusive, meaning that it should compulsory for all citizens, whether or not they intend to borrow.

Establishment of the creditworthiness of citizens will bolster the confidence of financial institutions to offer certain classes of credit without the ubiquitous demand for collaterals. When a citizen is able to prove he or she has integrity, it is the best collateral possible. Integrity is a convertible currency. The credit score scheme will serve as a mechanism to confirm it for every individual.

With a scheme like this in place, the Federal and State governments can easily offer financial palliatives or bailouts to the people and small businesses through collateral- and interest-free loans. This is far more effective and verifiable than the so-called “conditional cash transfers” which have merely been used to grease the wheel of corruption among highly-connected politicians and their cronies.

Ordinarily, the linking of individuals’ NIN to this policy is another welcome idea. However, the Federal Government has not shown its ability to effectively exploit this technological mechanism to solve the problems it was created to do. While the NIN and Bank Verification Number, BVN, are in active use in the banking system, it has failed to benefit the nation in tackling our security problems.

Nigerians were forced to link their NIN to their phone Subscriber Identification Module, SIM, Cards to enable the security agencies, telecom service providers and banks to synergise and track down criminals. It has not worked. The security system has failed to make it work.

We hope CREDICORP will do better.