Nigeria and Cameroon are moving to cut the cost and time of cross-border trade as the two nations’ customs administrations begin a joint assessment of the Mfum-Ekok One-Stop Border Post (OSBP), a move expected to improve cargo clearance and strengthen the flow of goods along the two countries’ trade corridor.
The initiative, being driven by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Cameroon Customs Administration, seeks to replace duplicated border procedures with coordinated processing, digital customs workflows and joint risk-management systems.
The development comes as businesses across Africa continue to grapple with high logistics costs, border delays and multiple regulatory checks that raise the final cost of traded goods and undermine the competitiveness of regional supply chains.
The joint assessment, held on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, was themed “Leveraging the Nigeria Customs Service Trade Modernisation Project to Advance Seamless Cross-Border Trade and Shared Prosperity.”
It brought together customs officials, technical experts, security agencies, development partners and representatives of communities around the border.
Adewale Adeniyi, comptroller-general of Customs, said the objective was to build on the existing relationship between the two customs administrations and develop a model that could be replicated across the region.
“We are not building from nothing. We are taking something that works between the two of us and asking whether it can be made to work for the region and hopefully for our continent,” Adeniyi said.
He said the geographical proximity of Nigeria and Cameroon had not translated into seamless movement of goods and people, stressing the need to remove unnecessary barriers that constrain legitimate trade.
For businesses, the proposed one-stop arrangement could reduce the time trucks spend at the border, minimise repeated inspections and lower the administrative costs associated with moving cargo between the two countries.
The two customs administrations have also begun work on a joint operational agreement, following a study tour of the Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe to examine practices that could be adapted to the Nigeria-Cameroon corridor.
The agreement is expected to be signed at the forthcoming C-PACT conference.
Fongod Nuvaga, director-general of Cameroon Customs, said the assessment represented the first concrete step towards establishing unified border operations.
He identified real-time data sharing and joint risk-management systems as critical to the success of the initiative, arguing that cargo and travellers should be processed once rather than subjected to multiple checks by agencies on either side of the border.
Such integration, customs experts say, could help address one of the major structural constraints to intra-African trade: the cost and unpredictability of moving goods across borders.
The initiative is also expected to support the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which seeks to increase intra-African commerce by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers and improving the movement of goods across the continent.
The Mfum-Ekok Border Modernisation Initiative, launched at the end of the assessment, will combine customs technology with improvements to physical border infrastructure.
The project will digitise customs processes, optimise border facilities and create opportunities for businesses operating along the Nigeria-Cameroon corridor.
Development institutions, including the African Development Bank, ECOWAS, ECCAS, Afreximbank and the AfCFTA Secretariat, are supporting efforts to improve cross-border trade facilitation.
SOURCE: dailytrust.com