The Nigeria Customs Service has announced plans to reduce cargo clearance time to 48 hours and also eliminate redundant checks, expedite dispute resolution within the nation’s seaports and land borders, with the unveiling of a One-Stop-Shop initiative.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, announced this in Lagos at the official launch of the OSS on Saturday.

Speaking during the event, Adeniyi, who was represented at the event by the Deputy Controller of Customs in charge of Enforcement, Timi Bomodi, explained that the One-Stop-Shop initiative is firmly anchored in Nigeria’s broader business environment reforms under Executive Order 001 and the Business Facilitation Act, which emphasise transparency, service timelines, digitisation, and inter-agency coordination.

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.

In line with the approved Standard Operating Procedure, the platform brings together valuation, Customs Processing Centres, intelligence, enforcement, compliance monitoring, and gate operations into a single workflow, supported by digital tracking and clearly defined escalation paths.

According to him, the One-Stop-Shop initiative pursues clear and measurable operational and economic outcomes: “It reduces clearance time by eliminating duplicated reviews and sequential inspections, supporting a 48-hour clearance target and improving significantly on historical dwell times.”

Adeniyi stressed that recent assessments by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council have acknowledged measurable progress while also highlighting persistent bureaucratic bottlenecks and weak consequence management.

“Within this reform framework, the NCS has continued to reposition its systems to support national competitiveness, with improved rankings in efficiency and transparency reflecting these efforts, even as they remind us that institutional reform must remain continuous, practical, and results-driven,” he added.

He said over time, risk intervention at the declaration processing stage evolved into a fragmented structure in which valuation, enforcement, intelligence, compliance, and processing units operated largely in isolation, with limited coordination and unclear accountability.

The CGC added that this arrangement produced multiple checkpoints, sequential reviews, and repeated documentation requests, creating avoidable delays and administrative burdens for traders.

He noted that operational assessments and internal reviews have shown that these inefficiencies were driven more by systemic gaps than by inspection performance, while OSS implementation studies further indicate that frequent post-release interventions, sometimes outside port environments, added to uncertainty and compliance costs.

“These cumulative challenges underscored the need for a comprehensive structural solution rather than piecemeal adjustments. The OSS 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.

“In line with the approved Standard Operating Procedure, the platform brings together valuation, Customs Processing Centres, intelligence, enforcement, compliance monitoring, and gate operations into a single workflow, supported by digital tracking and clearly defined escalation paths.”

He said the system also lowers compliance costs by minimising physical interfaces and discretionary interventions.

Adeniyi maintained that the initiative also strengthens revenue assurance through improved profiling, intelligence integration, and coordinated enforcement: “It enhances transparency through digital audit trails and systematic performance monitoring, and it aligns post-clearance controls with international best practice by assigning such interventions primarily to the Post Clearance Audit Unit, thereby reinforcing consistency, accountability, and regulatory discipline across the clearance cycle.”

“These outcomes align with global evidence under the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Technology alone does not reform institutions, which is why the deployment of the OSS has been supported by comprehensive process reengineering, structured officer training, and sustained change management programmes.

“Units that once operated independently now function as integrated teams, guided by shared performance indicators and clearly defined responsibilities. Recent performance assessments confirm that MDAs with strong digital workflows and coordinated decision-making frameworks achieve better service outcomes,” he added.