17.66 million mails sent in one year - NIPOST

The number of mails sent in Nigeria totalled 17.66 million in 2021 according to the Nigerian Postal Service.

This is as the agency’s revenue fell by 22.79 per cent to N3.63bn. This was revealed in a new National Bureau of Statistics report released on Tuesday. The report stated that EMS/Speedpost generated N1.27bn, which was 35.14 per cent of the agency’s total revenue.

Parcel clearance/delivery fee generated N689.12m, and NIPOST premises/space generated N299.66m. Giving a breakdown of the report, the NBS said, “In addition, the agency handled a total of 17,656,768 mails domestically and internationally in 2021.

“About 8,111,461 mails were handled domestically, representing 45.94 per cent of the total mails, while 1,040,461 mails were dispatched abroad, representing 5.89 per cent of the total mails.

However, 8,504,846 mails were received from abroad and delivered in Nigeria, representing 48.17 per cent of the total mails handled in the year. Also, in 2021, the number of post offices in Nigeria stood at 2,794.”

NIPOST’s N1.27bn revenue is a 93.55 per cent fall from its N19.7bn revenue in 2018.

According to the former Postmaster-General, NIPOST, Dr Ismail Adewusi, the pandemic disrupted the revenue stream of the agency. In a recent interview with The PUNCH, he stated that 60 per cent of the agency’s revenue was from the export of items, which has since been disrupted.

He said, “The pandemic brought about several challenges to our operations as a postal operator. We are the designated postal operator for Nigeria.

“The problem that happened following the pandemic was that the entire global postal operations stopped because of the closure of several borders. During the pandemic, it was difficult. 60 per cent of our revenue comes from the export of items, particularly mail, parcels, and cargo. During the pandemic, all of these stopped."