•Sets November deadline to remove export bottlenecks

Since its launch in March, the National Single Window (NSW) has already demonstrated significant adoption, processing more than 124,614 licences and permits, registering 11,096 importers and agents, and facilitating approximately N12.59 billion in regulatory payments, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, has disclosed.

This comes as the minister said the Federal Government had set the end of November 2026 as the delivery deadline for the second phase of the NSW, warning government agencies against allowing bureaucratic fragmentation to continue undermining the country’s export competitiveness.

Oduwole gave the directive yesterday in Abuja at a high-level stakeholder engagement session on the activation of Phase 2 of the NSW and the Export Tracker, describing the digital trade platform as a long-awaited reform that should fundamentally change the way businesses interact with government.

She said the development was particularly significant for Nigeria as a trading economy, noting that the country had joined the league of nations operating a NSW system.

Oduwole, however, stressed that launching the platform was only the beginning, insisting that its ultimate success would be determined by whether exporters experience fewer bureaucratic hurdles, greater transparency and faster movement of goods from production to international markets.

She said the reform was critical to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ambition of diversifying the economy, expanding non-oil exports, creating jobs and placing Nigeria on the path towards a $1 trillion economy by 2030.

“Trade does not happen at the border alone. It depends on the system connecting production to market, standards, finance, logistics, regulation, border processing and digital platforms,” she said.

The minister recalled that exporters had identified seven major barriers at the ministry’s November 2024 ministerial export consultation, with more than half linked to fragmentation, duplication, weak coordination and regulatory inconsistencies.

She cited the experience of an exporter whose container was subjected to repeated inspections by different government agencies as an example of the bureaucratic friction the National Single Window is expected to eliminate.

While acknowledging the progress recorded under Phase 1, Oduwole cautioned that the government must not confuse the launch of the platform with full operational readiness.

She said the experience of the first phase had demonstrated that integration, data migration, change management, user support and data governance were equally important components of the digital infrastructure.

Data presented by the minister showed that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) accounted for more than 85,000 documents processed through the platform, attracting N9.95 billion in payments, while the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) processed 38,985 documents and generated N2.59 billion in regulatory payments.

According to her, Phase 2 must therefore connect export permits, certificates, licences, inspections, payments and other critical processes within a coordinated, end-to-end architecture.

Oduwole disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had begun aligning its internal processes across the Federal Produce Inspection Service (FPIS), Regulatory Export Number (REX), SON, Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and other relevant interfaces as part of preparations for the integrated export track.

She charged participating agencies to leave the stakeholder engagement with clearly defined responsibilities, milestones, dependencies and deadlines.

“At the close of this engagement, we must know what we own in the Phase 2 journey, where we stand against the agreed milestones, what remains outstanding, which institutions or systems we depend on and who owns the next action, with a firm delivery date, which is the end of November 2026,” she said.

The minister said the real test of Phase 2 would not be the number of government agencies connected to the platform but the experience of Nigerian exporters.

She said an exporter should be able to understand the requirements, submit information once, track an application, make payments, secure approvals and move a compliant Nigerian product to market with greater speed and predictability.

The Executive Chairman of the National Revenue Service, Dr Zacch Adedeji, charged agencies involved in the implementation of the National Single Window to strictly adhere to the timelines to ensure the success of the programme.

He said the government was committed to ease of doing business because it was the only way investors could come in and the economy would benefit.

Also speaking, the Director of the National Single Window Secretariat, Mr Tola Fakolade, said five government agencies had so far been fully onboarded onto the platform.

They are the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, NAFDAC, Nigerian Customs Service, Nigeria Quarantine Service and National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA).

Fakolade said the government had also implemented manifest submission through the platform, recording substantial adoption by air cargo operators.

According to him, 25 of the 27 airlines handling cargo in Nigeria had been onboarded onto the National Single Window, representing about 93 per cent participation.
The airlines had collectively submitted more than 2,523 air cargo manifests through the platform, he said.