NIPOST: A Behemoth Dogged by Inefficiency, Sharp Practices

There are recent reports highlighting thefts, late deliveries, tampering, extortion, and other fraudulent activities allegedly linked to NIPOST staff. This appears to have significantly eroded public confidence in the postal service. As trust is diminishing in some quarters, calls for accountability and reform are growing louder. LADESOPE LADELOKUN reports

Years after she confirmed her items from China had arrived at a Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) office in Bayelsa, Oku Odeamuza still could not understand how it developed wings and feet. All efforts to retrieve her items, she said, yielded no fruit, as no one could give any convincing argument about why she could not have her items.
In a chat with Sunday Telegraph, Odeamuza said: “I was not the only one. When I got to their office, I saw people who complained about the same issue. Please call me back in the evening. I’m at work now. I’m with children.”
Earlier, in an apparent response to the flurry of complaints about alleged theft of items at its offices, NIPOST had in an October 15, 2019 Facebook post, wrote: “Alleged cases of theft of items should please be reported to the receiving post office or please call our customer contact centre on: 07000NIPOST/ 07000647678.”
Odeamuza had responded: “Story. Like anything will be done. I remember one year Christmas, all my items from China got wings and feet on reaching NIPOST office. No one could give me reasonable answers. I just let go.
Una get luck, what I know now I didn’t know then. Una for pay tire.”
But Odeamuza’s case is just one of the sad experiences of Nigerians, who lamented missing items at NIPOST offices, among other alleged irregularities.
With recurring reports of theft, late delivery of items, tampering, extortion and other forms of fraudulent activities allegedly linked to NIPOST staff, a number of Nigerians with sad experiences have had their confidence eroded in the behemoth.
Conversely, a visit to the website of NIPOST in search of its goal revealed something noble as it partly read:”To provide affordable, reliable and efficient postal service nationwide and worldwide. Ensure the delivery of mail within the following stipulated time: Intra-city – 24 hours; Inter-city – 48 hours; Nationwide – 72 hours
“Identification of the mailing and postal related needs of our various customers and rational allocation of resources to meet these goals and objectives. To eliminate the incidence of mail theft, pilfering, tampering and all forms of fraudulent activities as a way of boosting customers’ confidence including that of other administrations.”
In what appears to be a move to change the narratives at NIPOST, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, had in a post on X in October 2023, sought the thoughts of Nigerians on their hopes for the ideal NIPOST.
Tijani wrote: “NIPOST with over 1,180 post office outlets and 3,000 agencies should be playing critical roles in the country’s digital economy.
“As we innovate towards a stronger digital economy, the role of NIPOST cannot be underestimated. Please share some of your hopes for the ideal NIPOST in the comments.”
Expectedly, Tijani’s plea attracted a sea of comments. Tucked in between the litany of suggestions were concerns about what Nigerians deem the decaying structures of NIPOST across Nigeria, alleged unprofessional conduct of staff, alleged cases of theft,among others.
Specifically, one Jet Daniel@LaceVine wrote:”What about when they stop stealing customer items? That’s a good idea to implement .”

Harvest of lamentations
Expressing frustration over their alleged stolen items, some Nigerians have voiced their anger on X.
MALEEK1.0@MaleekoyiboHello @NIPOSTNG wrote: “An iphone 15 was sent to my brother from the USA. It’s been months now and he’s yet to get his phone.
The tracking ID shows that the device has been delivered to @NIPOSTNG Area 3, Abuja Nigeria. But your staff claims the device has not arrived.
“Same thing happened when a gold jewelry was sent to us from the USA. Your staff at Area 1 Abuja, concealed it and denied receipt.
“How long will the stealing at NIPOST continue? How much longer do we have to deal with missing items in NIPOST.
Dear @bosuntijani , the current situation at NIPOST is very appalling. Kindly intervene sir. The thieves at NIPOST need to be punished.”
HorlahOladeji @Horlah_13 wrote: “It’s just so pathetic… My dad sent a package to me since 9th February from Nigeria. Till this moment, nobody knows the whereabout of the item. I have contacted @NipostNgn tirelessly and all I just get is “Copy and paste response”… What a shame!
MacMee @lanrezeez wrote :”Na today? It’s an agelong thing. This sharp practice has been in existence from time immemorial. My mother retired from there and stories related to this are not new to me.
“Many staffers were demoted, sacked and some jailed because of this. Money order theft, stamp fees theft, etc.”
Mathias Chia @donchia shares his experience: “They have a group or syndicate running this operation in NIPOST, and they are domiciled in Lagos. I sent a phone to my wife earlier this year; what my wife received shocked me to the bones. These thieves removed the phone and accessories and replaced them with canned sardines and medication. They didn’t stop there; they retyped the Waybill and replaced it with the nonsense they sent to my wife. I don’t know what to do with our terrible behaviour. Tomorrow, we will say that someone is demarketing Nigeria, when we don’t help ourselves. If you cannot trust NIPOST, what does that tell you?”
Mr K @Kelvinosa47 wrote: “Same thing they did to me in 2016. My friend sent me an iPhone 7plus(Red) and Pure Silver(750) necklace in September 2016 and NIPOST staff changed it to one small Android phone(cool pad) and put those aboki elephant tusk chain inside… Omo since then, I stopped using USPS through NIPOST.”
Aliyu Bello@Sandmilk narrates his experience: “Ordered 2 items with gifts. Both delivered with packaging opened and the gifts missing. Filed reports. Got refunded for 1 by seller, but Amazon declined to even reply or refund the other gift.
Was later told that’s the norm for Nigerian deliveries.”
Creator of Excellent Things@ thetopazbrand wrote: “NIPOST in Ebutte Metta took my makeup products worth 57,000 sent from Ohio in September last year!
“I ran around with them but didn’t get the products till now. It’ll be a year next Month. NIPOST is unreliable and are thieves!”
AyomideVandross @Ayomide wrote: “Shoe I bought from ASOS.com in 2015 was delivered to @NIPOSTNG twice and I never saw it. It got to a point, ASOS started responding like I was trying to play smart. Meanwhile, my country’s NIPOST people were stealing the item.”
Ibrahim Suleiman@edomalo wrote:”No be today NIPOST don be agbaya sha. I’m not even surprised. People that broke into a pack of candy a lover sent me back in the day. As in, they ate most of the candy, then delivered the rest. I’m still caught between amusement and bemusement to this day.”

Beyond NIPOST,a foreigner’s cry
In a chat with Sunday Telegraph, a Chinese national, who simply identified himself as Telly, said although his parcel was once missing, NIPOST was not culpable. He said he patronized Choice Courier Company but his parcel was later returned. He, however, alleged that there were cases where the operatives of the Nigerian Customs stole devices meant to be delivered to him.
“Yes, we`ve experienced it before. We just told the logistics that the package was not complete. They would check and give feedback. It wasn’t NIPOST. It was another company(Choice Courier Company). We just kept pushing them, and they gave feedback until they found it.
“In some cases, the Customs took the devices, for this kind of cases we couldn’t get them back.”
Asked again if his items got stolen from Choice Courier Company or the Nigeria Customs, Telly stated: “Customs. They stole it.”

NIPOST blames illegal courier companies for theft, failures
The General Manager, Courier and Logistics Regulatory Department ( CLRD), NIPOST, Mr. Gideon Oludotun Shonde, in a chat with journalists recently, blamed illegal courier companies for all manner of sharp practices.
He said:”Many of these illegal/ unlicensed/ unregistered courier and logistics operators nationwide pose a security threat to the nation. They engage openly with reckless abandonment without considering ethical standards and professional practice.”
He further stated that the said quacks “engage in unethical sharp practices, which include but are not limited to the following: price undercutting, broaching, damages, loss and dumping of customers items, poaching and subletting of operating license with numerous public complains about customer’s packages being missing, being duped or obtaining money from them under false pretences, with no traceable office address nor registered brand name.”
Meanwhile, following the approval of the Postmaster General of the Federation/CEO, Eng Tola Odeyemi, the Enforcement Team of the Courier and Logistics Regulatory Department(CLRD) of NIPOST embarked on clampdown operations of illegal/unregistered/unlicensed private postal, express, delivery, dispatch, courier and logistics service operators in the Federal Capital Territory and its environs in May.
According to Shonde, the clampdown was in line with the statutory provision of Section 43(1, 2 and 3), NIPOST ACT, Cap127, LFN 2004, and Courier and Logistics Regulatory (OPERATIONAL) Guidelines 2024.
He admonished that, “any interested private investors in the Courier and Logistics business should follow the due process by obtaining a grant of operating licenses from the Federal Government.
Meanwhile, in a recent interview monitored on Arise TV, the Postmaster-General of the Federation, Ms Tola Odeyemi, admitted that NIPOST had failed to meet some of its timelines for parcel delivery, citing financial constraints and poor infrastructure.
“I will be honest. We’re not meeting some of those deliveries. I think maybe, we’re probably meeting the intra-city delivery targets. In terms of inter-state targets, because of road networks, sometimes financial constraints, and the availability of infrastructure, we are not able to meet some of those targets.”

Tales of extortion
At first ,Mrs Bimbo Ajiboye had visited the Ikeja office of NIPOST(near Computer Village) to get the items – drugs and a phone- sent to her by her relative in the United States. But, no record, according to her, showed the items arrived there. At the said office, a conversation with a member of staff (name withheld) revealed proximity in residential addresses, making them instant friends. There and then,Ajiboye was admonished to visit the airport office.
In a chat with Sunday Telegraph,she said: “I was told my items were still at the Shagamu office and in a matter of days, it would get to the Redemption Camp office in the Mowe area of Ogun State. I went there as told and I eventually saw the items. I discovered it had been unsealed. That was not even an issue for me. But the Customs duty was more than the value of what was sent to me. I told them it was on the high side and they said it was beyond what they could handle. Meanwhile, I had explained to the Customs officer at the airport office to help me because I only got my drugs and a phone. He promised I would be exempted because he saw that I’m an elderly woman.”
She continued: “But the staff at the Redemption Camp office of NIPOST said they needed proof that I was actually exempted. Meanwhile, the desk officer that lives close to me had told me he could help me reduce the Customs duty by leveraging the relationship he has with Customs officers. He said he would collect N10,000. But the Customs officer was ready to exempt me for free without any charge. Because of the state of my health, I could not get back to the airport for the proof requested. I had to contact the NIPOST man, who eventually got N10,000. The Customs officer that exempted me did not know he got money from me. He thought he was just being nice to an elderly woman, when he persuaded him to intervene at the time via a phone call to the Mowe office because I couldn’t go back to their office. I couldn’t have paid a dime to the NIPOST worker if my health allowed me to go back to the airport.”
Also, Olagoke Olaosebikan, a software engineer, had accused some officials of NIPOST of extorting N37,000 from him while trying to claim a package he had ordered from Germany.
Olaosebikan told FIJ that in February, he received a call from an employee of NIPOST asking him to come to their office located in Ketu, Lagos, to claim his item, a box guitar.
According to FIJ, an employee of NIPOST had called Olaosebikan to come to their Ketu office in Lagos to get him item but insisted he would cough up N37,000.
“I was confused and just had to visit their office. When I got there, I was told to pay N37,000, being 20 per cent of the Value Added Tax (VAT) on the total amount of N124,500.
“I demanded to know why I needed to pay such an amount. I also made them realise that 20 per cent of the total amount mentioned was about N25,000, and not N37,000.
“All they told me was that the order was from the Nigeria Customs Service and it was not their business. They even threatened to destroy my item if I did not pay the amount they demanded.”
He added : “The first time I went there, they said they would give me an account number to pay into but I refused. Later, they called a particular Mr. Toki at the Customs office and asked me to beg him to see if he could help reduce the amount to about N25,000.
“I noticed something was fishy when I visited the office a second time. I told them to give me the account number but they refused. They even said they were willing to ‘help’ if I would stop being difficult.”

We’re just getting to hear of theft of items at NIPOST first time – FCCPC
In an interview with Sunday Telegraph, the Director, Surveillance and Enforcement at the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC),Mrs. Boladele Adeyinka, said the issue of theft of customers’ items was only being brought to the attention of the agency officially for the first time by the newspaper. She, however, added that the agency would conduct its investigation after which she requested for links to stories involving victims and tweets.
“Of course, every consumer’s concern is an issue the commission takes seriously. We have been receiving complaints about non-delivery. This is the first time we are hearing officially, as was reported through you, on social media, that theft has not only been occurring but it’s rampant as you claim. So, when we receive intelligence of market practices like this, we have to investigate. Prior to now, the non-delivery of parcels were the complaints we received or late delivery of parcels. But this theft of parcels is of greater concern. You know non-delivery could arise as a result of theft, misplacement or wrong delivery. ”
She added: “Because if you take customer A’s parcel and deliver it to Customer B, Customer A may be saying non-delivery or theft. So, we need to investigate. Even before this complaint of theft, we had instituted and commenced a process of engagement, which is statutory MoU, to streamline operations and concerns, leading resolution of consumer complaints, fast-tracking service delivery and customer satisfaction and jointly investigating companies to be able to apprehend violators. These are very basic and when you are saying NIPOST, it isn’t a government agency in the context of what you are saying. It’s a corporate entity that is providing service to cosumers. It is also required to abide by the provisions of the FCCPA. We will definitely look into the matter and report.”
However, in chat with Sunday Telegraph, a consumer rights advocate,who pleaded anonymity, said there was a need for Nigerians to imbibe the culture of channelling their complaints to the appropriate quarters, when their consumer rights get infringed upon, noting that it was not enough to lament on social media.
Meanwhile, several calls and messages put across to the Spokesman on NIPOST, Mr Frank Alao, were not answered for days, even as of the time of filing this report.