The Chairman of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) Governing Board, Barrister Isaac Kekemeke, has openly admitted that the agency has fallen short of public expectations but assured Nigerians that a new and improved NIPOST is on the horizon.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday at a maiden meeting with top management, General Managers of Commercial Business Units, and State Postal Managers, Kekemeke said the time had come for the agency to rebuild public trust and reposition itself as a reliable national institution.
“We know that over time we have disappointed Nigeria and Nigerians,” Kekemeke stated. “But we are going to come up, after now, to tell Nigerians that we are ready.”
He emphasised that NIPOST’s primary challenge was not funding, but a need for attitudinal change and action-driven leadership. “It’s the job first, not funding,” he said. “If you bring all the funds and you have no attitude in action, your fund is going to go into the same drain.”
He hinted that following the two-day strategy meeting, Nigerians would begin to see “a new NIPOST, not the old one that they used to have.”
Backing the Chairman’s vision, NIPOST CEO Tola Odeyemi said the agency had already begun rebranding efforts and was aligning its operations with international best practices. “With the onboarding of Chief Kekemeke, I think what we’ll see is an accelerated improvement in the Nigerian Postal Service,” she said.
She announced that NIPOST had signed onto the Postal Prosperity Zoom Project, a Universal Postal Union (UPU) initiative aimed at reclaiming lost e-commerce volumes and boosting local delivery capabilities. “NIPOST is now positioned as Nigeria’s designated operator for e-commerce, handling everything from warehousing to customs clearance and reverse logistics,” she explained.
Odeyemi also unveiled several key reforms and partnerships:
- A unified postal management system to support e-commerce and logistics operations.
- A digitised customs duty system in partnership with Paystack to eliminate human interference and promote transparency.
- A commercial e-commerce platform, launched in collaboration with Sendbox, with the first consignment shipped on April 12.
- A logistics partnership with Messenger to enable MSMEs and independent riders to use NIPOST infrastructure.
- Ongoing digitisation of financial services, including the PostMoney platform and super agency licensing through partnerships with Interswitch, Parthian Capital, and Ecode.
This is about changing the face and perception of NIPOST, Odeyemi said. “We are building a system that supports the e-commerce ecosystem and offers reliable last-mile delivery services”.
