The Nigeria Postal Services is set to improve its cross-border e-commerce service and create jobs for the country’s unemployed youths through its digital Address Verification System.
The traceable addressing system will also facilitate immigration services, issuance of driving licence and e-government services.
The Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, made this known at a one-day stakeholders’ conference organised by NIPOST in Lagos.
He identified poor infrastructure such as roads, postal addresses and utilities as some of the factors hampering the development of e-commerce in the country.
Shittu added that if power supply and Internet connectivity were available to most rural and urban areas, the postal sector would make significant impact.
“The issue of infrastructure…. the roads, postal addressing, ICT infrastructure and such utilities are critical to e-commerce development. There is no gain saying that the current situation in most developing countries remained poor,” he said.
The minister added, “Most of our streets are unnamed and the houses remained unnumbered, thanks to the great strides by the government through the Nigerian Postal Services in accelerating the development of digital addressing, which is currently receiving worldwide acclaim on innovation and creating a plain field for all players in the sector.
The Postmaster-General, NIPOST, Bisi Adegbuyi, stated that unemployed youths in the country would be engaged to verify the addresses of Nigerians and would earn a stayed income.
“We would use millions of Nigerian youths as our address verification agents to enable them to make money. All they have to do is to come with a simple smartphone with Internet connection, go to a location, and verify people’s address. They will take their details and photograph, which will be automatically uploaded into our database,” he said.
Adegbuyi added, “The person who wants an address to be verified for him or her wants to use it for a purpose, either to access government services, to procure international passport, or to procure driver’s license. He or she is going to pay N1, 000 as address verification fee. So this means if you can verify as many addresses as possible, you can make a lot of money.”
Adegbuyi added that NIPOST was committed to using its widespread infrastructure to provide employment for the people, reduce poverty and create wealth.
In addition, the minister stated that NIPOST would also offer other services such as banking, property and development, transport and logistics in order to diversify its revenue streams.
Shittu said, “We shall also establish a NIPOST property and development company. NIPOST has many landed properties scattered across the country and they are going to be used for properties investments to bring a lot of money into the coffers of NIPOST.
“We are also establishing the NIPOST transport and logistics company and NIPOST e-government services company, which will carter to e-governance, particularly with the application and delivery of driving licences, vehicle documents and international passports.”
