The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is to rollout paperless customs clearance system by the end of the second quarter of 2026.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, made the disclosure on Friday at the launch of the NCS One-Stop-Shop (OSS) Platform Stakeholders’ Engagement held in Lagos. He was represented at the event by the Deputy Comptroller-General in charge of Enforcement, Timi Bomodi, who presented the Comptroller-General’s address.
Addressing stakeholders, industry operators and government partners, Adeniyi described the paperless transition as a critical milestone in the Service’s broader institutional reforms.
“As part of this broader transformation, the Service is advancing toward a fully paperless Customs environment. I am pleased to inform stakeholders that the first phase of this transition, covering core clearance, documentation, and approval processes, is scheduled for rollout by the end of the second quarter of this year,” he said.
He explained that the digital shift would “further reduce physical interfaces, enhance data integrity, improve processing speed, and strengthen audit controls.”
The announcement came alongside formal engagement on the NCS One-Stop-Shop initiative — a streamlined cargo clearance framework designed to eliminate redundant checks, collapse multiple intervention points and centralise risk management processes.
Adeniyi noted that previous clearance structures had evolved into fragmented systems where valuation, enforcement, intelligence, compliance and processing units operated largely in isolation.
“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,” he stated.
According to him, the structure created “multiple checkpoints, sequential reviews, and repeated documentation requests,” leading to avoidable delays and increased compliance costs for traders.
The One-Stop-Shop framework is designed to centralise all risk interventions at the Area Command level into the Query & Amendment (Q&A) process, bringing together valuation, Customs Processing Centres (CPC), intelligence, enforcement and compliance units into a unified physical and digital workspace.
“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,” he said.
Adeniyi disclosed that the OSS platform aims to significantly cut cargo dwell time and meet a 48-hour clearance target — a marked improvement from the current average dwell time of 21 days.
Within the integrated framework, he said the initiative seeks to reduce clearance time by eliminating duplicated reviews and sequential inspections; lower compliance costs by minimising physical interfaces and discretionary interventions; strengthen revenue assurance through improved profiling and
