Back in the early 90's when the Services of NIPOST was at it's worst. It would usually take months for a letter from say Abuja to deliver in Lagos.
Thank God for the internet....Now
we all use the convenience of our email account for fast and easy message delivery (electronically though)
Then the GSM came and the ease of mobile communication took the burden off all of us. At first, it was very expensive then later competition drove the price down over time but by then, it was already too late. The mobile communications giant who dominated the market had milked us Nigerians dry.
Now the trend is changing. People now communicate through social networks and that requires data not airtime. Unfortunately for us all, we are being taken through the same cycle of high/expensive data rates. BBM was a life saver for most of us. For a miserly N1,500 monthly package, one would get unlimited access to chat with friends, family and business associates. But now BBM is going out of the trend and other more flexible and user friendly phones with more entertainment options come with the Android OS. Unfortunately, they don't have subsidized data rates.
But still there is a vacuum which is yet to be filled. There is yet to market dominant package delivery service with a network that covers the whole country like NIPOST. Almost every town and village across the country has a post office. At least let's say every LGA (Local government area) which is about 750 or so.
That's a huge coverage network of infrastructures which is just lying there to waste with staffs who do nothing but sell postage stamps and occasionally weigh parcels whose senders would only hand in over to them with a lot of Faith hoping that it gets delivered on time.
This should be so. Especially when you consider the eCommerce potentials of Nigeria. Package delivery itself is a Billion Dollar industry and no one is yet to dominate that market in Nigeria. Not even DHL, UPS or FEDEX. The few indigenous one just don't have the branch network and infrastructure that NIPOST has.
So it's about time the government does something about NIPOST by privatizing it...Are you for or against this policy? Please let me know.
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