Questions are mounting over the security of Nigeria's national education database after the Federal Government's Nigeria Education Management Information System (NEMIS) displayed warnings of a potential cyberattack on Thursday.

Checks conducted at 11:20 am revealed that the NEMIS website displayed a warning indicating that attackers could be attempting to obtain information from visitors to the platform. The system, managed by the Federal Ministry of Education, aggregates data from institutions across the education sector, including records of public and private schools, student enrolment figures, teacher profiles and details of educational infrastructure.

The platform also captures key indicators such as access to education, retention and completion rates, which policymakers use to monitor performance and allocate resources across the country.

Data analyst, Joseph Dokhare, who spoke on the development, explained that a "connection is not private" alert does not automatically confirm a hack but signals a security issue requiring immediate attention.

"Before we can say it has been hacked, we have to see reliable data that was leaked from that service. Somebody whose registered data is now leaked, that's what we can say it has been hacked," he stated.

Dokhare noted that the warning could indicate non compliance with established security protocols rather than an active intrusion. "It could be that they have not adhered to some security rules. It's like you don't have a gatekeeper in your house, you don't have security in your street, you are already exposed. It does not mean you have been attacked," he explained, adding: "Somebody is trying to flag that, 'hey, you are exposed, you have not done ABC'".

He urged website administrators to ensure full compliance with cybersecurity protocols and strengthen the platform's security architecture to prevent unauthorised access and protect user data.

Experts noted that while the alert may stem from routine certificate errors, it could also point to more serious vulnerabilities requiring urgent intervention.

When contacted for a response, Ikharo Attah, Special Adviser on Media and Communications to the Education Minister, indicated he was in a meeting and would return the call.