Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) saboteurs, both internal and external, have received a severe warning from Chief Isaac Kekemeke, chairman of the Governing Board of the NIPOST, urging them to either stop their actions or stop sabotaging the agency.
At a retreat for NIPOST management staff in Abuja on Monday, Kekemeke attributed the agency’s downfall to the actions of “mail rats” and saboteurs, who he said have hindered the organisation’s capacity to make a significant contribution to Nigeria’s socioeconomic advancement.
He bemoaned how NIPOST was in a terrible position due to years of incompetence, a bad reputation, and internal sabotage.
He emphasised the need for urgent reforms to align the agency with the administration’s vision for a revitalised public service.
“In all, it became apparent that the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) is a challenged organisation. Many Nigerians, albeit agreeing on the huge potential of NIPOST as a national heritage and significant national infrastructure, expressed displeasure and disappointment with its performance. Most young men and women could not relate to or with NIPOST,” Kekemeke said.
He said the workshop was aimed at disclosing the vision of the board to the management and to jaw-jaw on meaningful solutions to address difficulties facing the business. To become globally competitive and compete with other players like Royal Mail, Swiss Mail, and Deutche Postal Service, among others, Kekemeke stated that NIPOST would undergo urgent reforms.
“In this place and as Chair of the board, I shall not be afraid to take decisions, and I shall help the President to succeed. NIPOST must work and work very well. We need to reform, rebrand, and re-strategise. We must be technologically/digitally competitive, get innovative, and operate efficiently.
“We must come out of the quagmire of reform circles. In my sincere view, the solutions to the perennial problems of NIPOST are in the hands of the ladies and gentlemen listening to me here in this room.
“In my search for understanding what needs to be done here, words and phrases like Universal Postal Union (UPU), Integrated Index for Postal Development (280), Postal Development Level (PDL), and Reliability, Relevance, Reach and Resilience as core indicators of Postal development were recurring.
“These texts and what they represent must be learnt by heart by everyone here and in the organisation. We need to understand what we do and how to do it well, Kekemeke said.
The Postmaster General and CEO of NIPOST, Mrs. Tola Odeyemi, complimented the President’s nomination of Kekemeke in her remarks, stating that the Chairman had the ability, experience, and power to improve NIPOST’s narratives.
According to Odeyemi, NIPOST has made deliberate efforts to enhance its range of services so that it can support the GDP of the nation and aid in its development.
According to her, the NIPOST Express Mail Service (EMS) has grown by more than 400 percent, and the NIPOST and Universal Postal Union (UPU) have started projects to recover service volumes that have been lost to e-commerce behemoths in Africa and around the world.
According to Odeyemi, NIPOST is about to begin and provide the services in the next few days. Odeyemi listed the services that were lost to approved operators like NIPOST, including customs clearing, warehousing, and reverse logistics services.
