President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has hailed Nigeria’s growing role in Africa’s trade integration after a Nigerian-owned company secured a 20-year, multi-billion-dollar project to modernise customs operations across the continent.
AfriTrade CMP Limited, a subsidiary of Bergmans Security Consultant and Supplies Limited, will implement the AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project, deploying digital and physical infrastructure for customs processing, cargo tracking, border management and trade-data exchange.
The company is already involved in Nigeria’s customs modernisation through its subsidiary, Trade Modernisation Project Limited, which is implementing the country’s programme.
Tinubu said the continental project demonstrated that Nigerian technology and expertise could compete across Africa, describing it as an example of the opportunities his Nigeria First policy aims to create for indigenous businesses.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene, who visited Abuja to mark the agreement, inspected Nigeria’s customs modernisation system and described B’Odogwu, the Nigeria Customs Service’s indigenous Unified Customs Management System, as a potential model for Africa.
Mene said AfCFTA had received offers from non-African companies but chose an African solution, highlighting the continent’s growing technological capabilities.
B’Odogwu, piloted in October 2024, forms part of Nigeria’s wider customs reforms covering cargo tracking, data infrastructure, surveillance, risk management and non-intrusive inspection. The system is also being integrated with the National Single Window, launched in March 2026.
Tinubu said the project could help reduce barriers to intra-African trade by enabling goods to cross borders faster, more efficiently and at lower cost.