The Revolutionary Handshake between NIPOST and Ministry of Interior.

The Revolutionary Handshake between NIPOST and Ministry of Interior.

When people hear NIPOST, their minds naturally get fixated on letters, emails, and delivery of documents. Few also link the Nigerian Postal Service to purchase postage stamps. With the great advancement in information and communication technology that revolutionised the way we communicate, it appeared as if the end of post offices were in sight.

In Nigeria, NIPOST naturally went on an inevitable decline with the era of P.O. Box strolling towards extinction. But post offices in other parts of the world, especially the developed world, are evolving to keep up with the changing times. In the UK, for instance, there are around 11,500 post offices, making it one of the largest post office networks in the world. In Nigeria, we have around 955 post offices, some of which are dilapidated.

Notwithstanding the ICT revolution, post offices in other climes such as the UK have evolved and now provide a range of services such as sale of stationery, bill payment services, money transfer services, banking and insurance services, passport application services and the collection of health insurance contributions and even tax collection.

It was therefore gratifying to see the newly appointed Postmaster General and CEO of NIPOST, Ms Tola Odeyemi clearly trying to make NIPOST evolve and move from its traditional comfort zone to one that provides a lot of services required in Nigeria's growing digital landscape. Perhaps the greatest of such moves would be the anticipated partnership between NIPOST and the Ministry of Interior.

On 25th October 2023, the Postmaster General paid a courtesy visit to the Honourable Minister for Interior,  Hon. (Dr) Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo to seek collaboration between NIPOST and some of the Ministry. Mrs. Odeyemi obviously smelt a big opportunity when the Minister back in September promised that by February 2024, the Nigerian Immigration Service would commence home delivery of international passports. No agency is better positioned to help achieve that than NIPOST!

The NIPOST Boss proposed business collaboration and partnership with the Ministry of Interior in three key areas, which include:

1. Delivery of critical documents such as International Passports to applicants. 

2. Backend services for processing of passport utilising NIPOST selected locations.

3. NIPOST for Address Verification System (AVS)

These three potential areas of collaboration, if successful, would impact Massively on Nigeria's passport application and delivery system and our national security. First, the Nigerian Immigration Service can partner with NIPOST to leverage on their wide network of post offices scattered across the country to offer some backend services for processing of passport applications.

Backend services for passport processing here refer to the activities that take place behind the scenes to ensure that passport applications are processed efficiently and that passports are issued in a timely manner. This includes the receipt and verification of passport applications, the collection and verification of supporting documents, the checking of passport photographs against biometric databases, and the printing and quality control of passports.

Backend services in the case of passport processing also include the security checks that are carried out to ensure that passports are not issued to people who are not eligible for them and that addresses supplied by the applicants are verified.