By Reportcircle Abuja
Nigeria’s tourism and national identity management architecture is set for a major strategic overhaul as the Director General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Aare Bisoye Fagade, paid a high-level courtesy visit to the Director General/CEO of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Engr. (Dr.) Abisoye Coker-Odusote, at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday.
The meeting, attended by top management teams from both agencies, signaled the beginning of a transformative institutional partnership aimed at aligning Nigeria’s identity infrastructure with the rapid evolution of the hospitality, travel and tourism sectors.
At the heart of the discussions was a proposal to integrate NIMC’s comprehensive national identity database into NIHOTOUR’s certification and registration systems for practitioners across the industry, a move anchored in the NIHOTOUR Establishment Act and designed to professionalize the sector with unprecedented levels of traceability, credibility and standardization.
According to both DGs, the partnership is positioned to deepen national security, strengthen regulatory compliance and elevate service excellence by ensuring that every certified tourism and hospitality practitioner is verifiably registered under Nigeria’s national identity framework.
Engr. (Dr.) Coker-Odusote affirmed NIMC’s readiness to support institutions that rely on accurate identity verification for operational integrity.
She emphasized that secure data exchange and interoperability are foundational pillars of modern governance and essential catalysts for economic transformation.
the Director General described NIHOTOUR’s initiative as timely, visionary and strongly aligned with national development priorities.
Responding, Aare Bisoye Fagade highlighted that the collaboration would modernize NIHOTOUR’s internal systems and inject higher standards into Nigeria’s fast-expanding hospitality and tourism ecosystem.
He expressed confidence that the proposed synergy would unlock new growth pathways and reposition the sector for global competitiveness.
Both institutions agreed to set up a Joint Technical Working Group to develop an actionable implementation framework, a step that marks the beginning of a more integrated, secure and professionally regulated tourism landscape in Nigeria.
