Senate to Revisit Courier Regulatory Bill Five Years After 

Emma Okonji

Given the projected global market value of courier, logistics and transport industry, which is put at $60 trillion, with Nigerian market valued at $16 trillion with an asset worth $14 trillion, the Nigerian 10th Senate is set to revisit the country’s Courier Regulatory Bill, five years after it was initially discussed but set aside.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, Senator Aliyu Ikra Bilbis, who gave the assurance of the planned revisit during the Courier Logistics Management Institute (CLMI) International Conference and Investiture 2005, which held in Lagos recently, said there was need for an independent regulatory body for the courier industry in Nigeria, as practiced in other climes, to enable Nigeria tap into the huge market value of its courier, logistics and transport industry.

Bilbis who spoke to THISDAY on the sideline of the conference, said: “The Courier Bill is very important to revisit. I will personally go through it to understand exactly the content of the bill, before presenting it to the National Assembly. I will also speak to my colleagues in the National Assembly and in the House of Representatives to support the bill, because this is a bill that really needs to be supported by everyone in Nigeria, and not only by members of the National Assembly.”

The keynote speaker at the conference and Chairman, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Senator Adedayo Clement Adeyeye, who was represented by Senator Bosun Oladele, said: “No economy grows faster than its logistics network allows. In Nigeria, over 80 per cent of our international trade by volume and 70 per cent by value is maritime-based, which makes the Nigerian Ports Authority a strategic driver of national wealth and industrial growth.”