.Hails Nigerian firm, Bergmans, for winning multi-billion dollar continental customs project
Deji Elumoye in Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has lauded the growing continental recognition of Nigeria’s customs modernisation programme and commended the selection of a subsidiary of Nigerian-owned Bergmans Security Consultant and Supplies Limited for a 20-year, multi-billion-dollar AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project.
Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, in a release issued on Monday, disclosed that the project, to be implemented through Bergmans’ subsidiary, AfriTrade CMP Limited, will deploy digital and physical infrastructure to improve customs processes, cargo tracking, border management and trade-data exchange across participating African countries.
Another Bergmans subsidiary, Trade Modernisation Project Limited, is implementing Nigeria’s homegrown customs modernisation programme.
The president said the development validates Nigeria’s capacity to build homegrown solutions for the wider African market.
According to Tinubu, “What has been built and tested in Nigeria is now providing a model for the continent. This is how African integration should work: Africans building African solutions for African opportunities. Nigeria must not only participate in Africa’s single market. Nigerian institutions and businesses can help build the technology and infrastructure that will make that market work. Under our Nigeria First policy, we will continue to create opportunities for capable Nigerian businesses to compete at home, across Africa and globally.
“I commend Bergmans, AfriTrade CMP Limited, Trade Modernisation Project Limited, the Nigeria Customs Service, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi and the Nigerian professionals whose work has earned this confidence.
“The promise of AfCFTA will be realised when goods can move across African borders faster, at lower cost and with fewer barriers. Nigeria is ready to contribute its experience, innovation and enterprise to that future.”
Before now, AfCFTA Secretary-General, Wamkele Mene, had while in Abuja for the agreement, also visited the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) headquarters to see the Nigerian programme in operation.
Members of the Senate Committee on Customs, led by Senator Jibrin Isah, joined the visit at the conclusion of their two-day retreat on Customs modernisation and reforms.
Mene described B’Odogwu, Nigeria’s indigenous Unified Customs Management System, as a model for Africa and disclosed that non-African companies had offered similar services.
But AfCFTA chose an African solution, underscoring the importance of African excellence and innovation.
Senator Isah, after seeing the systems at work, said members of his committee had become its ambassadors.
B’Odogwu, first piloted in October 2024, has become central to NCS modernisation in Nigeria alongside cargo tracking, data infrastructure, surveillance, risk management and non-intrusive inspection.
The programme is also being integrated with the National Single Window, launched in March 2026 to provide a single digital gateway for cross-border trade processes.