Ms Omotola Odeyemi,
Post Master General/CEO, Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST)
Ms Omotola Odeyemi is the 11th Post Master General/CEO of Nigeria’s oldest establishment, Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST), after she was appointed in October 2023 by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The 44 years old certified engineer, public administrator and organizational growth strategist is the first female CEO of the establishment since 1999, and with her aspiration to not only solidify NIPOST’s status as one of the leading postal operators in the world but to also make it a critical conduit in bridging the trade, economic, and social gaps of our beloved nation. She assured of her vision to make NIPOST a dependable logistics provider that can connect Nigerians irrespective of what they do: entrepreneurs to their customers, diasporas to relatives back home, Nigeria to the global e-commerce market and also, Nigerians to their government irrespective of where they reside.
In the past one year since her assumption of office amidst the mixed feelings amongst staff of the establishment expressing uncertainty and lack of confidence in her ability to address the lingering wishes of the people, she had proved pessimists and antagonists wrong by her stellar achievements. NIPOST has recorded significant milestones under her leadership, and we bring you some of them.
As one of the pilot initiatives by the new CEO, Ms Tola Odeyemi, she mobilized NIPOST operatives nationwide to ensure sanitation of courier business and ensure nationwide enforcement exercise to sanitize the postal sector which has been infiltrated by quacks and unethical practices by unregistered, unlicensed and illegal operators nationwide. The initiative was targeted at forestalling unethical sharp practices, such as price undercutting, pilfering, broaching, damage, loss and dumping of items based on numerous customers complaints, poaching and subletting of operating licenses with mountain of public complaints about Customer’s being duped or swindled by obtaining money from them under false pretenses, no traceable office address, no registered brand names to mention but a few by these unregistered/unlicensed/ illegal operators. Also, using all hands approach to addressing the challenges, she rolled out capacity enhancement training for operators to improve their skills and educate them on policies and laws as affect the business. This was organized across the different states in the country.
In collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force, NIPOST engaged in improving on the synergy in regulation and sanitization of the courier and logistics industry nationwide due to deep concern over the increasing number of illegal, unregistered and unlicensed Courier and Logistics Operators without brand names, obtaining money under false pretences, carriage of illicit drugs and prohibited items, non-delivery of items, unregistered operations with disregard for due process of obtain a grant of an operation license from NIPOST before operating the business. In line with her goal to reposition NIPOST as an international brand in the postal service industry, Tola Odeyemi unveiled the plan to modernize 50% of its 1,400 office locations of Nigeria Postal Service, and leverage on robust strategic partnership to advance the country’s logistics ecosystem. She had committed to facilitating the reform of Nigeria Postal Act to separate the regulatory arm of NIPOST from the operation arm as many stakeholders are clamouring, and reposition it as a national infrastructure, and the federal government is committed to making the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) an affordable, last-mile delivery hub solution for goods and services. This is targeted at creating more employment, increasing revenue and putting the organization of the global postal service industry.
Tola Odeyemi’s reform efforts had also sought to increase the opportunities in the courier and logistics industry for interested Nigerians thereby creating employment and job opportunities. She engineered the licensing of operators across the 36 states of the country to ensure compliance with extant law and international practices.
The Postmaster General stated that the Federal Government is committed to making the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) an affordable, last-mile delivery hub solution for goods and services.
She had never shied away from the imminent challenges that the organization has grappled with over the past years, such as poor road networks, inadequate warehousing facilities, vandalism, thievery and infrastructural deficiencies hindered the full potential of the logistics and courier sector.
Odeyemi assured that a constant and strategic upgrade of regional infrastructure was important to maintain a competitive logistics and courier ecosystem.
She is committed to ensuring that some successes have been recorded since she assumed office and will not be resting on her objective of driving the organization to become one of the major contributors to Nigeria’s GDP.