HOW CHIEF GODWIN UBAKA OKEKE OWNED GUBA EXPRESS COURIER SERVICES LIMITED MISPLACED CUSTOMER’S PARCELS WITHOUT COMPENSATION

Secret Reporters

GUO Transport Company owned by Chief Dr. (Sir) Godwin Ubaka Okeke has over the years been accused to be an epitome of unprofessionalism and inefficiency perhaps due to its long-time operation in Eastern Nigeria. This unprofessional conduct like diffusion in physics has moved from GUO Transport Company to every subsidiary operating under it with GUBA Express Courier Services Limited taking the lead in this regard despite its hypocritical motto of fast, safe and affordable delivery of parcels and freights.

Information made available to SecretReporters reveals that on 27th August 2019, a legal practitioner based in Abuja, Mr Seprebofa Oyeghe, sent a parcel with Waybill No. 2109326 containing a set of CAC Incorporation documents and Endorsement and Return of Court Processes through the Abuja terminal of GUBA Express Courier Services Limited which is a subsidiary of GUO Transport Company located at Plot 171 Gouba Plaza, Ekukinam Street, Utako Amac, Utako, Abuja to Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos Pick up terminal to be received by one Mr. Inibehe Effiong on 29th August 2019.

We gathered that the staff who received the documents from Mr Seprebofa hastily wrote only CAC documents on the parcel. The lawyer quickly drew his attention to the anomaly but he quickly responded that “…it does not matter what I write on the envelope or what is in it, what matters is that your parcel is delivered to the destination”. On hearing this, Mr Seprebofa felt relaxed thinking that his documents are in the hands of professionals as he has been made to believe.

However, 5 days after the dispatch, Mr Seprebofa who had not gotten any feedback of delivery from the company, called the receiver Mr Inibehe Effiong, to visit the Lagos Pick up terminal to ascertain if the document had arrived its terminal.

Upon the visit of the receiver to the Lagos office, he was perplexed to be informed that the terminal had not received the parcel and advised him to contact the Abuja office to determine the location of the parcel.

Our source revealed that on contacting the Abuja Office, they were informed that the parcel had been handed to a driver for onward dispatch some days ago redirecting him to contact the Lagos office. This anomaly continued as he was tossed to and fro by the Abuja and Lagos Office with no definite information as to the whereabouts of the parcel.

Just when Mr Seprebofa thought he had seen the worse of the situation, he received a call on the 3rd of September 2019 from the management of GUBA Express Courier Services Limited intimating him that his parcel got missing on transit while asking him of the value of the items contained in the parcel as the only option available to them was for compensation to be paid for the loss of the parcel.

In response to the pressure being mounted on him by the management of the courier service for a proposal of the compensation amount, Mr Seprebofa proposed a paltry sum of N300,000 (Three Hundred Thousand Naira) which could barely cover the expense he had incurred in procurement of the CAC documents, court processes, the service of the court process and the cost of waybill.

Upon hearing the proposed amount, the management of the courier service allegedly went incommunicado and all efforts to reach them towards arriving at an amicable settlement proved abortive.

On seeing that no response was forthcoming from the management of GUBA Express Courier Services Limited both at its Abuja and Lagos Offices, he went ahead to involve the services of a law firm who caused letters of formal complaint to be written to the management of the courier service while he made emergency alternative arrangements to procure another set of documents and Way billed same via Chisco (CTN Express) at an additional cost to the receiver in Lagos which was delivered in less than two days it was sent from Abuja.

Lamentably, more than two months after our source proposed the compensation amount of N300,000 to the management of GUBA Express, SecretReporters gathered that they have neither communicated nor given the proposed compensation to Mr Seprebofa who may have undergone a traumatic experience during his ordeal with Chief Godwin Ubaka Okeke led unprofessional courier company.