Smartcomply Academy has secured accreditation from the Nigeria National Accreditation System as a personnel certification body, enabling it to certify professionals in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, privacy and other fields under ISO/IEC 17024:2026.

 The academy disclosed in an email on Monday that the accreditation, referenced as PC0001A, took effect on September 7, 2026, and is valid until September 6, 2030. As of September 22, the academy said it was the only body on the NiNAS public register whose current accreditation certificate cited the 2026 edition of ISO/IEC 17024.

 The accreditation followed an assessment of Smartcomply Academy’s certification system, including its technical competence, impartiality and controls for certifying individuals against defined requirements.

 It is separate from course completion, with the academy saying candidates who complete its training programmes are not automatically certified.

 Certificates issued within the academy’s NiNAS-approved scope will carry the NiNAS accreditation symbol and Personnel No. P0003. Each certificate will identify the holder and certification achieved, state the issue and expiry dates, carry the authorised signature of the academy director and include a unique identification number that can be verified online.

 “An accredited certificate should tell an employer more than that someone completed a course. It should show that competence was tested through a governed, impartial and secure process,” Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Smartcomply Group, Gbemisola Osunrinde, said.

 “We invested in the people, committees, technology, procedures and evidence needed to meet that standard. The NiNAS accreditation symbol on our in-scope certificates now gives professionals a visible link to the independently assessed system behind what they have earned.”

 Smartcomply certifications are valid for three years, subject to the academy’s surveillance, continuing competence and recertification requirements.

 The NiNAS symbol on a certificate does not mean NiNAS trained, examined or directly certified the individual. It indicates that the certification activities conducted by Smartcomply Academy within the approved scope have been assessed against the requirements for personnel certification bodies.

 Smartcomply Academy began in 2024 as a learning platform and subsequently established a separate certification system to meet the accreditation requirements.

 Within the approved scope, the academy acts as both scheme owner and accredited personnel certification body for five scheme families: cloud security, cybersecurity and internet security, risk management, data protection and privacy governance.

 As scheme owner, it defines and maintains competence requirements, eligibility criteria, assessment methods, certification rules and recertification pathways for those schemes. For five other scheme families, the academy operates as the accredited personnel certification body without owning the certification schemes.

 To meet the accreditation requirements, the academy established Scheme, Certification and Impartiality Committees and introduced controls covering conflicts of interest, candidate applications, identity verification, examination content, secure remote examinations and automated proctoring with human review.

 It also strengthened procedures for examination review, independent certification decisions, certificate issuance and verification, appeals and complaints, recertification, records, document control and oversight of external service providers.

 The approved certification scope covers 27 designations across 10 scheme families. They include information security management certifications covering ISO/IEC 27001 Foundation, Lead Implementer and Lead Auditor; business continuity management certifications covering ISO 22301 Foundation, Lead Implementer and Lead Auditor; and cloud security certifications for Certified Cloud Security Associate and Certified Cloud Security Professional.

 “Across Africa, skilled professionals increasingly need credentials that employers can verify and trust,” the Head of Smartcomply Academy, Oseyemi Ayegbusi, said.

 “This accreditation confirms that Smartcomply Academy assesses competence through a system built on impartiality, examination integrity and independent certification decisions, in line with ISO/IEC 17024:2026.”

 Ayegbusi said the academy would continue to update the schemes it owns, apply the requirements within its approved scope and recertify professionals according to its procedures.

 NiNAS operates within the international accreditation system as a signatory full member of Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated, which unified and assumed the roles previously performed by the International Accreditation Forum and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation.