Nigeria, Cameroon Customs Move to Ease Mfum-Ekok Cross-Border Trade

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Cameroon Customs Administration have commenced a joint assessment of the Ekok-Mfum One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) as part of efforts to eliminate barriers to cross-border trade and strengthen regional economic integration.

The high-level assessment, held on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, brought together customs officials, technical experts, security agencies, development partners and community leaders from both countries.

The exercise, themed “Leveraging the Nigeria Customs Service Trade Modernisation Project to Advance Seamless Cross-Border Trade and Shared Prosperity,” focused on improving border operations, enhancing security and facilitating the movement of legitimate goods and travellers between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Speaking at the event, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said the two countries were building on an existing partnership to develop a more efficient border management system that could serve as a model for wider regional integration.

Adeniyi noted that despite the geographical proximity between Nigeria and Cameroon, movement across the border remained unnecessarily difficult, stressing the need for both countries to remove avoidable bottlenecks.

He said, “We are not building from nothing. We are taking something that works between the two of us and asking whether it can be made to work for the region and hopefully for our continent.”

The Customs chief acknowledged the contributions of the African Development Bank, ECOWAS, ECCAS, Afreximbank and the AfCFTA Secretariat towards strengthening cross-border trade and regional integration.

He disclosed that delegations from both customs administrations had recently undertaken a study tour of the Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe to examine international best practices in border management.

According to him, technical teams from both countries are currently working to finalise a joint operational agreement, which is expected to be signed at the forthcoming C-PACT conference.

Also speaking, the Director-General of Cameroon Customs, Fongod Nuvaga, described the assessment as the first concrete step towards unified border operations between the two countries.

Nuvaga called for greater emphasis on real-time data sharing and joint risk-management systems, saying such measures would ensure that cargo and travellers were processed once rather than subjected to repeated checks by different agencies.

The assessment culminated in the launch of the Mfum-Ekok Border Modernisation Initiative, which seeks to transform operations at the border through digital customs processes, improved physical infrastructure and enhanced trade facilitation.

The initiative, driven by trade technology experts, is expected to create new economic opportunities and support the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The Nigeria-Cameroon collaboration is expected to strengthen border security while reducing delays and transaction costs for legitimate traders, thereby promoting increased trade and shared prosperity between both countries.