Nigerian Postal Service is one of the longest serving services in Nigeria and indeed Africa. Abbreviated as NIPOST, it is a government-owned and operated corporation in Nigeria, that is responsible for providing postal services and administration in Nigeria.
History has it that first stamps for Nigeria were issued on 1 June 1914 following the amalgamation of all of the British colonies in the area (Northern Nigeria Protectorate and Southern Nigeria Protectorate). The first stamps were the standard King George V Empire key type, which was also previously used for the issues of Northern Nigeria.
Nigeria’s postal service has metamorphosed from the stone-age days of posting letters. Their services now include EMS/Parcels, E-Commerce logistics, financial services among others.
In his maiden meeting with Management and staff of the organisation, the PostMaster General, Bayo Adewusi promised to harness the low hanging fruits to create an impact in the first 100 days of assumption of duties.
Adewusi, a Tokyo-trained Economist, admitted the enormous challenges, mostly of infrastructural decay and low staff morale due to poor staff welfare bedevilling the organisation and promised to address them.
Nine months after, the Post Master General NIPOST has offered many transformational innovations into the posting service in Nigeria.
He has worked assiduously to implement the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy’s directives on the use of POS for all transactions across the Post Offices in Nigeria to block revenue leakages.
He has made efforts since assumption to find solutions to the problems associated with the use of POS in the transactions in the Post Offices.
Additionally, the Postmaster General has received maximum cooperation from members of staff of NIPOST. They have to put all hands on deck in moving the organization forward.
NIPOST also offers online tools to customers, which are evidently helpful to the services of the federal government establishment. Customers now have access to track and trace their parcels online.
With this service, customers can track their numerous parcels immediately. NIPOST makes it possible for customers to track their parcels with Parcel Monitor. It can track any customer’s parcel in a simple way; with parcel Monitor sending each customer tracking updates straight to email.
Track and Trace makes a stress free access for tracking numerous parcels in Nigeria. Parcel Monitor will handle the difficulty of tracking parcels from various carriers. It keeps them informed about the present status of your parcels through emails.
With the use of a postcode Lookup System zip codes is well organized by the Nigerian Postal Service. The country is divided into nine regions, each region code makes up the first digit.
Interestingly, today, all courier companies have some kind of courier management software(s) installed for a superior service, including NIPOST. NIPOST has developed a software platform that will help its Courier Service Tracking System to determine the current position of its vehicles, freight or parcel with a navigation system installed.
The advent of Global Positioning System (GPS) has greatly assisted these efforts by NIPOST, as geographic location can now be pinpointed within a number of meters allowing the position of vehicle to be accurately determined. A GPS-based tracking system can provide this kind of centralized tracking and management that fleet owners need. The system was implemented using HTML and PHP programming language for frontend with MySQL as the backend.
NIPOST has more than 12,000 employees and runs more than 3,000 post offices. The Nigerian Postal Service also has the following Commercial Business Units; EMS/PARCEL, e-Commerce & Logistics, Financial Services, Mails, Counters, Property & Workshop, NIPOST Training School.
With the supervisory role of Dr. Ismail Adewusi, a Nigerian academic, lawyer, public administrator, politician and twice as former Commissioner in Lagos state, who was appointed commissioner for Finance between the year 2004 to 2006 and later as commissioner for Budget and Planning. He was also a governorship aspirant in Oyo State, Nigeria. In December 2019, Adewusi succeeded Barrister Bisi Adegbuyi as the Postmaster General and CEO of Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Under his chairmanship, the Nigerian Postcode Ecosystem and Infrastructure is a project consummated by Nigerian Post Service partnered with the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) to enhance postal service delivery in the country. The project infused the newly created standard postcode by NIPOST and the use of satellite imagery of high dimension through the national mapping network from NASRDA.
Yahaya Ahmadu Rufai, the Chief Operating Officer, a long serving member of NIPOST has been supportive to the leadership of NIPOST’s Chairman. Together with Adewusi, who led the NIPOST team, they signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the execution of the NASRDA project in Nigeria.
