FG Moves To Reduce Cargo Clearance From 21 To Seven Days At Nigerian Ports

.Dismantles illegal checkpoints along Apapa and Tin Can island ports corridor

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The Federal Government has hinted of plans to reduce cargo clearance at all Nigerian ports from 21 to seven days.
Already, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has intensified efforts to reduce the average cargo dwell time at Nigerian ports to seven days as part of measures to ensure trade efficiency, lower logistics costs and strengthen the country’s competitiveness.
Director-General of PEBEC, Princess Zahra Audu, who made this known to newsmen on Tuesday at the State House, Abuja, said the council has identified prolonged clearance of cargo as a major constraint to imports and exports, particularly when compared with neighbouring countries like Benin Republic and Ghana.
Her words: “As a resolution from the committee that was set up, we were tasked to try and bring down our cargo dwell time from 21 days to seven days. We worked assiduously with initiatives such as our joint inspection, which was designed to ensure that when cargos are berth, all agencies coordinate the effort to clearing the ship on time, so that the turnaround time is quicker. “For starters, we also have coordinated effort for inspection of cargos. We’ve also moved away from physical inspection of cargos to scanners, which also has optimized the service. The whole idea is to ensure that containers that arrive in Nigeria are cleared out within seven days. It’s a work in progress.”
Audu added that PEBEC established a committee in the Office of the Vice President in April, 2026 presently coordinating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) operating within the ports corridor to streamline the movement of imports and exports.
According to her, government at the centre has introduced joint cargo inspections and is replacing physical examinations with scanner-based inspections to improve efficiency and shorten vessel and container turnaround time.
She also identified the National Single Window as a major component of the reform, saying it has brought relevant agencies into a unified digital platform that simplify the documentation required for importing and exporting goods.
“The National Single Window is streamlining all the agencies and placing them on one mainstream software infrastructure that will enable them to coordinate seamlessly in terms of the documentation needed for the import and export of goods.”
Audu added that PEBEC had conducted visits to the ports in January, March and July to ensure that illegal checkpoints removed along the Apapa and Tin Can Island corridors did not return.
“We no longer have illegal checkpoints within the ports corridor in Apapa and Tin Can. We intend to sustain this. Our next visit will be in September, and we will continue the exercise for the next three years until it becomes the norm,” she said.
The PEBEC boss stressed that the Council also strengthened interaction between businesses and government through the ReportGov platform, which connects businesses directly with 69 business-facing ministries, departments and agencies.
Audu highlighted that the platform, relaunched in June 2025, had evolved from a complaint channel into a government-wide grievance resolution and accountability mechanism, allowing businesses to escalate challenges and receive responses within 72 hours.
She noted that physical ReportGov kiosks had also been deployed at major airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt, as well as at the Apapa and Tin Can seaports, to bring government services closer to businesses.
According to her, the 69 business-facing MDAs had been organised into clusters to reduce duplication, improve coordination and provide faster responses to businesses.
She cited the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) as one of the outcomes of the initiative, explaining that it would reduce repeated certification processes and the burden placed on industries.
Her words: “The objective is to simplify the whole process of doing business in Nigeria and ensure that we operate at our optimum as a country. This represents a significant shift because this level of accountability was an issue before President Bola Tinubu came into office, and as such, we decided that it was important for us to ensure that the optimum responsiveness from all business facing MDAs is assured for all people doing business in Nigeria, we’ve also started to bring our government closer by ensuring that all the business-facing MDAs, like I said earlier on, are able to engage.”
She explained that at the subnational level, ease-of-doing-business councils had been activated to strengthen coordination between federal and state governments, advance the digitalisation of public services and support the establishment of one-stop business centres.
Audu added that PEBEC was working with the World Bank through the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms Programme to assist states in accessing funding and implementing reforms in digital connectivity, land administration and the harmonisation of taxes and levies.
“We continue to work with the World Bank on our State Action Business Environment Reform Program (SABA) whereby there is a 750 million dollar fund for the states. We are actually in the final year of this program, and we are still working with the states to be able to access this fund directly from the World Bank.
“Its a loan, and as such, we need to prepare the states in such a way that this loan is being implemented for the right purpose, so that they are able to repay. Of course, we know it’s not free money, so as such, we need to prepare them.”
She further disclosed that small claims courts had been established in all states to provide affordable dispute-resolution mechanisms for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
According to her: “Every state in Nigeria now has a small claims court. This is important for MSMEs because they can pursue eligible claims without necessarily engaging a lawyer.”
Audu added that the council was promoting alternative dispute resolution and specialised commercial courts to ensure that business-related disputes were resolved within shorter periods.
The council, she further stated, would continue to address barriers such as limited access to finance, duplication of responsibilities and inter-agency conflicts, while developing digital one-stop shops and launching the Enable Her project to support informal businesses in transitioning into the formal economy.