Do you know your town’s postcode?

By: Azuka Osunde

Since the arrival of the electronic mail, popularly called the e-mail (Yahoo and Co.), coupled with irregular mail delivery at our post offices in Nigeria, most of us have developed cold feet towards anything that has to do with the Nigeria Postal system (NIPOST).

In the years of the locust, mails sent to Nigeria or posted from Nigeria take months to arrive at its destination, if they did not go missing, but with the arrival of the civilian government, things have taken a different shape for good. So letters today get to their destinations and fast as never before in the history of Nigeria Postal System. For example, a letter posted from Nigeria to Europe takes at least a week to get to its destination.

To meet these challenges of fast mail delivery, the minister in charge of Communication, Chief Adebayo, said that NIPOST had continued to acquire the facilities required to meet Federal Government’s mandate of 48 hours mail delivery on its National Mail Network.

In November, 2000, The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) lauched the Nipost Postcode System and since then, most of us are not even aware that such a thing exists in our country.

The first time I saw it was in December 2000 at the Aminu Kano Airport Post Office, Kano. I was there to post a letter to a friend and the girl at the counter alerted me to it, she gave me a booklet with all the states of the federation with postcodes listed.

In the booklet, the postcodes were listed in alphabetical order of states of the federation, for example under Delta or Edo state, the local government areas were listed and under the local government you will find your village’s postal code.

For example, under local government areas in Delta State, you will find Ika South Local Government and there, you will find the village or town where you come from. For example under  Ika South, you will find the post code for Agbor with the surrounding villages and towns as:   321101 ( althought the Management of Nipost wrongly spelt Agbor as Abor) and for Owa with the sorrounding villages and towns in Ika North: 321105.

However, it should be noted that the post codes for the streets in Agbor town are different. The post code for old Lagos/Asaba Road is different from that of Baleke Street. So to avoid any doubt, visit the NIPOST  Home Page: www.nigpost.com/deltast.doc

For people from Igbanke in Orhionmwon Local Area in Edo State, you have the post code for Igbanke as follows: 301104. Here the 6 quarters are under the same post code.

In a recent chat, the Minister of Communication, Adebayo, said   NIPOST had carried out a massive awareness campaign for the first edition of its Nipost post code System which was launched in November 2000. He regretted that Nigerians were yet to understand the full benefits of the system. The second edition of the project will be unveiled soon and will include major towns and villages omitted in the first lap.

So, when next you write a letter to your family at  home from your “oru oyibo”, don’t forget to include the town/village post code, this will help the postal workers and the sorting maschine to do the sorting faster and easily thereby helping the post to get to its destination earlier.