Nigerian traders and logistics operators may soon spend less time waiting for their goods at the country’s ports, after the Nigeria Customs Service on Thursday officially rolled out the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) platform designed to cut cargo clearance times to within 48 hours.
The launch, held in Lagos on Friday, was presided over by Bashir Adeniyi, comptroller-general of Customs, who described the initiative as a break from a system that has long frustrated businesses and inflated the cost of doing business in Nigeria.
“The One-Stop-Shop is designed as a unified operational framework that centralises all risk interventions within a coordinated digital and physical environment, replacing fragmented processes with an integrated clearance system,” he said.
For years, importers have complained of goods sitting idle at ports for days, sometimes weeks due to multiple customs units operating independently of each other, each running their own checks, demanding their own documentation, and answering to no shared standard.
The Service’s own Time Release Study confirmed the problem.
It said the new platform, first unveiled in September 2025, seeks to fix this by pulling valuation, enforcement, intelligence, compliance monitoring, and gate operation into a single coordinated workflow.
Also read: Customs targets 48-hour clearance time with One-Stop-Shop
All relevant officials will now work from shared dashboards, conduct joint inspections, and make decisions collectively, with every action digitally tracked and traceable.
“This is a deliberate shift from fragmented interventions to coordinated governance, from discretion to data, and from isolated actions to collective responsibility,” the CGC told stakeholders at the event.
The World Trade Organisation estimates that effective trade facilitation reforms can reduce trade costs in developing economies by more than 14 percent, a figure that carries real weight for a country like Nigeria, which has been working to strengthen its competitiveness as a continental trade hub.
The Service also announced that a fully paperless clearance environment is being prepared, with the first phase expected to roll out by the end of June 2026.
The platform will be integrated into the National Single Window, the system designed to unite multiple regulatory agencies under one digital roof, and is expected to go live by the end of March 2026.
Previous reform efforts at Nigerian ports have often struggled to survive contact with entrenched interests and institutional inertia.
Adeniyi acknowledged as much, framing the launch as the beginning of a continuous process subject to performance reviews, stakeholder feedback, and ongoing refinement.
“We invite all stakeholders to engage constructively, utilise the platform responsibly, and hold us to the standards we have set,” he said.
