The growth of the Internet and mobile phone services in Nigeria is gradually killing postal services as most people resort to the digital exchange of important documents.
The effect of this could be seen in the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which shows that the total revenue generated from postal activities in 2022 fell by 17.05 per cent, from N3.63 billion in 2021 to N3.01 billion last year.
The report also said that the total number of post offices and postal agencies decreased by 19.43 per cent. The figure shrunk from 2,794 in 2021 to 2,251 in 2022, while the total number of boxes installed in 2022 was 836,731, showing a decrease of 0.08 per cent.
Lagos state had the highest number of new boxes in 2022 with 143,416, while Jigawa recorded the least with 1,800.
The report added that the number of private mail bags (PMBs) available in 2022 stood at 20,775, showing a fall of 8.44 per cent from 22,689 in 2021.
However, the NBS said the number of postal articles handled in 2022 increased by 102.05 per cent from 17.7 million to 35.7 million.
