NIPOST has ordered its staffs to resume to work despite the lockdown

NIPOST has ordered its staffs to resume to work despite the lockdown by the Nigerian government.

In a circular produced by an undisclosed source, The Nigerian postal service has ordered all the NIPOST staffs to resume work on Monday 11th of May, 2020 irrespective of their levels saying they belong to essential service section of the workforce.

The source went further by explaining that this is an easy way to endanger the lives of the workers, considering some of them would have gone to different places in the last 6 weeks during the government mandatory lockdown and without knowing their COVID-19 status.

The further suggestion should be that the staffs undergo some sort of coronavirus (COVID-19) test and make sure they are negative and fit to go back to work before allowing them to be in contact with each other as some of the offices accommodate more than 10 staffs in a small room.

ABOUT NIPOST

HISTORY OF THE NIGERIAN POSTAL SERVICE 

The history of the Post in Nigeria dates back to 19th century. The first post office was established by the British Colonial Masters in 1852. It was considered to be a part of the British postal system. It was a branch of London General Post Office and this was the situation till 1874.

(1862) when the Post Office began its career as a full fledge Department, the Royal Niger Company (RNC) which was actively involved in economic activities in the country, set up its own postal system in Akassa in 1887, Calabar in 1891, Burutu in 1897 and Lokoja in 1899.  

Mail was being moved from these trading stations to and from Lagos by a weekly mail boat. In 1898, the British Post Office established post offices at Badagary, Epe, Ikorodu, Ijebu-Ode, Ibadan and Abeokuta. In 1892, the Royal Niger Company became a member of the Universal Postal Union.

By 1908, Money Orders and mail were directly exchanged with the German West African Colonies instead of via London, as it was the practice.  In 1925, Royal Airforce planes flew from Kano to Cairo carrying mail for the first time outside the country. From January 1, 1900, the Southern Nigeria Government took over the responsibility of running the postal system in the entire country. There were not too many good roads in those days as such mail was conveyed by canoes, launchers and runners which could only operate at intervals of two weeks or less.  

The first post-office in Northern Nigeria was established and located at Lokoja in 1899. While mail delivery was initially the business focus, British Postal orders were being sold and encashed as from 1907 in post offices located at headquarters of all District Commissioners. Internal AirMail flights started in 1931. By 1906, 27 Post Offices were operating and at the time of independence in 1960, 176 Post Offices, 10 sub Post offices and 1,000 Postal agencies were in the country.  

At independence, the post was administered jointly with Telecommunications as a government department. Later, postal establishments and services grew in leaps and bounds. The Federal Government by Decree No. 22 of 1966 made the department a quasi-commercial organiZation a step towards making it more efficient and responsive to public needs.

The Nigeria Postal service Department came into being with the establishment of the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) on January 1, 1985.  NITEL emerged from the merger of the Telecommunications arm of the defunct Post and Telecommunications Department of the Ministry of Communications with the former Nigeria External Telecommunications Limited (NET). Through the promulgation of decree No. 18 of 1987, NIPOST became an Extra-Ministerial Department.