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Nigeria’s WCO chairmanship as opportunity for trade facilitation 21 Oct 2025

When the World Customs Organisation (WCO) Council endorsed the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, as its Chairperson (effective 1 July 2025), it was more than a personal honour. It was a geopolitical and economic opportunity for the entire country. The WCO is the global hub for customs standards, best practice,  and technical cooperation. Chairing its Council gives Nigeria a platform to shape the agenda on trade facilitation, customs modernisation, and cross-border cooperation – the levers that affect the speed, cost, and predictability of trade for every Nigerian importer, exporter, and investor. 

The chairmanship can – and should – be converted into measurable economic gains for Nigeria. Doing so requires a two-track strategy. The first is to use the chairmanship to secure technical assistance, mutual recognition, and regional coordination at the WCO level. And the second is to match that international leadership with rapid domestic reforms, especially digital customs, a functioning single window, Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) programmes, and transparent port regulation. This is to ensure the benefits of better customs practice translate into lower trade costs, faster cargo flows, and stronger investor confidence.

Why Customs Leadership Matters

Customs are not a back-office function; they are a trade infrastructure. Delays at the border ripple through supply chains, multiplying costs through demurrage, longer inventory cycles, and higher working capital needs. The WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) estimates that full implementation could reduce trade costs by an average of 14 per cent and unlock up to $1 trillion in global trade annually – with the largest proportional gains in lower-income countries. For Nigeria, the economic scale of such reforms is material. Faster customs and port processes shrink logistics costs, support manufacturing competitiveness, and make domestic firms more attractive as suppliers to regional and global buyers.

Moreover, the WCO is the steward of practical instruments that help countries deliver those gains. The instruments include the SAFE Framework for secure, risk-based facilitation; the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) and the WCO Data Model to harmonise cross-border data; and the AEO concept, which to recognises low-risk traders with reduced controls. These instruments are proven enablers of faster, safer and cheaper trade when domesticated and properly implemented.

Ongoing Reform in Nigeria

There are encouraging signs that Nigeria’s authorities understand the prize of reform. The presidency launched a National Single Window project in April 2024 to centralise trade paperwork and reduce agency fragmentation. This is a critical enabler of faster customs clearance. The government has also attracted major private investments in port infrastructure. Ffor example, a reported $600 million Maersk investment aims to upgrade facilities, which indicates investor confidence in a modernising port ecosystem. 

Yet, important gaps persist. Nigeria’s customs and port processes still suffer from fragmentation among agencies, paper-based procedures in parts, variable enforcement of safety and environmental standards, and periodic labour disruptions that slow throughput. The Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Nigerian Ports Authority have taken steps toward better data and performance reporting, but a fully operational single window, statutory port economic regulation, and mature customs-to-business partnership tools (AEO and Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs)) remain work in progress. Closing these gaps will determine whether the WCO’s chairmanship yields practical economic returns.

Setting the Agenda

The chairmanship should be used as a lever to achieve precise, high-value outcomes. Below are priority areas, each with the economic logic and the practical asks that Nigeria can make of its WCO peers and partners.

Technical assistance: This is needed for a robust National Single Window and data interoperability. Why does this matter? Single windows drastically reduce clearance times and paperwork duplication when they are integrated with customs, port systems, and other agencies. Rwanda’s single window provides a clear example. After its implementation, average import clearance times fell sharply, contributing to major reductions in dwell time and logistics cost for traders. Nigeria should use the WCO platform to secure technical support and peer mentoring for rapid implementation and for aligning the Single Window with the WCO Data Model.

The technical assistance should include targeted expert deployments, peer missions to countries with mature single windows, and support to map agency data requirements against the WCO Data Model so that the single window is interoperable by design.

AEO programmes and MRAs: The AEO status rewards trusted traders with faster processing and fewer inspections. MRAs between customs administrations amplify that benefit by granting reciprocal treatment across borders. A functioning AEO system raises predictability for major importers and can cut logistic costs for Nigeria’s export champions. The country would require technical guidance from the WCO to design an AEO programme tailored to Nigeria’s trade profile, and a roadmap to negotiate MRAs with key partners (regional and global) that would immediately benefit Nigerian exporters and importers.

Accession and implementation: The country also needs to push for accession or implementation of international instruments, including the RKC, use of the Data Model, and SAFE. This is important as the RKC provides a legal blueprint for modern customs law, e.g., advance rulings and risk management. The SAFE Framework sets out supply-chain security with built-in facilitation measures. Greater alignment with these instruments reduces uncertainty for trade and simplifies regulatory compliance for firms.

To deliver on these needs, Nigeria can ask the WCO for targeted workshops on RKC accession and practical steps for legislative alignment and technical missions to help implement SAFE baselines, including customs-to-business pillars.

Data-driven monitoring and KPIs: Another area of need is data-driven monitoring and Key Performance Indicators (PKIs) for port and customs performance. Policymakers cannot manage what they do not measure. Publishing consistent, comparable KPIs, such as dwell time, customs clearance time, percentage of electronic declarations, and detention rates, focuses reform incentives on results and gives shippers the information they need to make routing and sourcing decisions. Australia’s ACCC port monitoring reports and similar transparency regimes in OECD countries have been central to reform debates. Nigeria should commit to similar public reporting. 

To deliver on this, the WCO can provide technical assistance to design a national dashboard compatible with regional reporting frameworks and with the WCO’s measurement recommendations.

Integration and transparency: Nigeria also needs to integrate customs modernisation with port economic regulation and concession transparency. Ports are where customs activity meets terminal operators and concessionaires. Transparent concession processes, competitive tendering, and statutory port economic regulation reduce rent extraction – which raises costs – and create clearer price signals for investors. Nigeria’s WCO leadership is a powerful credibility signal to investors. Accordingly, Maersk’s announced commitments and the presence of major private terminals suggest there is appetite, but domestic law must underpin that confidence.

The country can leverage this development with the support of the WCO in the areas of best-practice exchanges on port concessions and assistance to harmonise customs data with concession monitoring so that public authorities can detect capacity shortfalls and service level slippages quickly.

Anti-corruption and digital risk management: Modernisation is partly technical and partly institutional. Training customs officers in risk-based targeting, digital workflows, and ethics reduces discretionary behaviour that fuels corruption and delays. The WCO’s technical cooperation can be focused on customs forensic analytics, governance, and risk-management centres.

The WCO can support the delivery of intensive training fellowships, diagnostic audits of current risk targeting systems, and partnerships for digital forensics and integrity programmes.

Realistic Expectations

How do these reforms translate into money? The exact numbers vary by model, but international studies show that meaningful trade facilitation can reduce trade costs materially and increase trade flows. The WTO’s headline estimate on trade-cost reduction with full TFA implementation and other studies that find 1–4 per cent reductions from partial implementation are instructive. For Nigeria, even incremental reductions in dwell time and demurrage would reduce working capital burdens for traders and cut state losses from leakages and inefficiency. Importantly, increased throughput from more efficient ports raises customs revenues – through higher volumes – and attracts higher-value logistics and manufacturing investment.

Already, investor signals are evident. Ongoing interests in Lekki and other deep-water projects suggest private capital is ready to deploy where regulatory certainty and operational efficiency exist. Nigeria’s challenge is to turn that interest into realised projects by demonstrating credible reforms at home and securing technical recognition abroad via the WCO platform.

As key policy recommendations for the year, I would like to see a fast-track National Single Window completion, aligned with the WCO Data Model; the launch of an AEO programme and commencement of negotiations for MRAs with key trading partners; and adoption of a measurable KPI framework for publishing quarterly customs/port performance reports. Others are enactment of a clearer port economic regulation statute to ensure concession transparency and competition; tailored technical assistance (legislative drafting, digital systems, and capacity building); and building regional coalitions around mutual recognition and interoperability. 

Conclusion

Nigeria’s seat at the head of the WCO Council is a timely strategic asset. It gives Abuja influence over the international rules and operational tools that underpin faster, safer, and cheaper trade. But influence is only meaningful if matched by domestic credibility: a running single window, clear port economic law, AEO recognition, data transparency, and trained customs professionals. 

The country needs to use the chairmanship to import the expertise and mutual recognition Nigeria needs; use domestic law and institutions to convert that expertise into lower costs, faster cargo movement, and higher investment. If we do this, Nigeria will not just chair a global body – it will become a regional model for trade facilitation and a better place to do business.

Joy Dimka is Senior Legal Officer at the Nigerian Shippers' Council.