By George Ozalla
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Cameroon Customs Administration have commenced a joint assessment of the Ekok-Mfum One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) as part of efforts to remove barriers to cross-border trade, improve border security and strengthen economic cooperation between the two countries.
The high-level assessment, held on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, was themed, “Leveraging the Nigeria Customs Service Trade Modernisation Project to Advance Seamless Cross-Border Trade and Shared Prosperity.” It brought together customs officials, technical experts, security agencies, development partners and community leaders from Nigeria and Cameroon.
Speaking at the exercise, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said the initiative was building on the existing cooperation between the two customs administrations, noting that the geographical closeness of both countries should make movement of people and goods across the border easier.
“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,” Adeniyi stated.
He acknowledged the support of the African Development Bank, ECOWAS, ECCAS, Afreximbank and the AfCFTA Secretariat towards efforts to improve cross-border trade and regional integration.
The NCS boss disclosed that officials from both countries had recently undertaken a study tour of the Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe to examine practices that could be adapted to improve operations at the Mfum-Ekok crossing.
According to him, technical teams from both customs administrations are also working towards the completion of a joint operational agreement, which is expected to be signed at the forthcoming C-PACT conference.
The Director-General of Cameroon Customs, Fongod Nuvaga, described the joint assessment as the first concrete step towards achieving unified operations at the border.
Nuvaga called for greater emphasis on real-time data sharing and joint risk-management systems, saying such measures would enable customs authorities to process cargo and travellers once instead of subjecting them to repeated checks on both sides of the border.
The exercise also featured the launch of the Mfum-Ekok Border Modernisation Initiative, which is expected to introduce greater use of technology into customs operations while improving the physical infrastructure at the border.
The initiative is being driven by trade technology experts and is designed to digitise customs workflows, improve the efficiency of border facilities and create new economic opportunities in line with the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
