THE NECESSITY OF POSTAL REFORM IN NIGERIA

The necessity of postal reform in Nigeria is precipitated on some factors? which have adversely affected the growth of the postal sector. These factors show the state of the postal sector in Nigeria before the reform which started in the year 1992 when the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), became a parastatal under the Decree 41 of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

As earlier indicated, before the year 1992, Nigeria witnessed a serious incursion of the private courier operator into the traditional domain of the Post. It became necessary to establish a courier arm of NIPOST called EMS/Speed Post to ensure healthy competition with the private courier operators.

One such factor was a delay in the delivery of mail nationally and internationally. The average delivery period of mail then was between two weeks and two months for national and international deliveries. Inter-state deliveries were between two and three weeks. Intra-city deliveries were between five days and two weeks.

Another factor was poor infrastructural facilities. There were so many broken down vehicles, dilapidated and abandoned post offices. As earlier shown, one mail van was covering about three mail routes as opposed to three mail vans covering one route. Consequent upon the abandoned or uncompleted post offices, there was poor postal access.

There was an average ratio of one (1) post office to twenty eight thousand (28,000) persons (1:28). This is far below the recommendation of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), particularly for developing countries, on postal access which states that one (1) post office should serve six Thousand (6,000) persons. Beside the poor postal service coverage, the actual postal access in terms of the distance between post offices was such that there was an average of Forty (40) kilometres between post offices.

Characteristic of the Post in this period also was the very poor customer service. The counter officers were very rude and nonchalant in their attitude to customers. The counter officers could leave the customers at the counter to go and eat food. Some of them ate at the counters. The customers would only be insulted by such officers if they (officers) were corrected. Some members of staff regarded their work as government business, hence they felt there was no justification for commitment. Some of the members of staff would report to work at the time they felt they should come. In the same vein, some of them would close from work at their own time rather than the official closing time.

The poor welfare package was also a problem of the Post at this time. The salaries were delayed for about two months. Some of the allowances were reduced. There were no approved conditions of service. Decisions on welfare issues of staff were taken by management or the leadership of the organization as it deemed fit at a time. Consequently the morale of staff was very low. The organisational structure of NIPOST was very poor. The structure was based on the orthodox bureaucratic organisational hierarchy was large. The span of control was very wide. There were many reporting lines. The roles were not streamlined to prevent conflict. The structure was not designed on product lines. There were, therefore, no structured Strategic business units (SBU).

Another feature of the Post in this period is the dilemma arising from rendering the universal service and the iInability of the Public Postal Operator to charge commercial rates on its services. The government was not ready to pay the difference between the rates used for universal service and the commercial rates. The revenue realised from the reserved area was not enough to finance the universal service because the mail traffic in Nigeria was very low. It was a crisis disposition.

Pilfering, dumping and loss of mail were predominant in this period. Many customers were not confident to patronise the post because they were not sure of what will happen to their items. Consequently, the mail volume and the revenue were very low.

Another notable factor was the absence of postal regulation. The best that was done was the issuance of license to courier operators without stipulated regulatory guidelines. There were no procedures and clear requirements for obtaining a courier licence. The Post as a whole was not regulated. As a result, there were many unregistered courier companies. Besides, many of the unregistered courier companies were involved in dumping and loss of mail.

There was no legal framework that would define the regulator, the Public Postal Operator and the Ministry. Consequently, the universal service and the reserved area were not well defined. The situation gave opportunity to the private courier companies to be involved in the universal Service and the reserved area meant for the Public Postal Operator. It was obvious that the Post in Nigeria needed a Reform.