The Federal Government has processed over N12 billion in five months from the first phase of the National Single Window (NSW) project which commenced on March 27, 2026.
Minister of Industry Trade and Investment Dr. Olajumoke Oduwole made this disclosure in Abuja yesterday.
Oduwole said: ‘The NSW platform has processed about N12 billion in regulated payments, more than 224,600 licences and permits and registered over 11,000 importers and agents since it went live on March 27, 2026.’
Speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement on the export component of the NSW project in Abuja, the Minister said more than 8,000 users had also been trained on the platform, providing evidence that the system was gaining acceptance among businesses and government agencies.
She said the experience from the first phase would be used to strengthen the second phase, which is expected to begin in November 2026.
The minister said the Federal Government was determined to use the second phase to remove the delays, duplication and poor coordination that have continued to make it difficult for Nigerian exporters to move goods from production centres to local and international markets.
She said every agency involved in the project must work towards a system in which exporters could complete their regulatory requirements through a coordinated government platform rather than having to deal separately with several institutions.
According to her, the NSW must make it possible for exporters to submit information once, track their applications, make payments and obtain the necessary approvals without repeatedly supplying the same information to different government agencies.
‘Trade does not happen at the border alone. It depends on the system connecting production to market, standards, finance, logistics, regulation, order processes and regional platforms,’ Oduwole said.
She said making the entire system work efficiently was critical to Nigeria’s efforts to diversify the economy, increase non-oil exports and create more jobs.
The minister said an export consultation organised by her ministry in November 2024 identified seven major barriers affecting exporters, with more than half linked to fragmentation, duplication, weak coordination and inconsistent regulation.
She recalled the experience of one exporter who complained that a container had been inspected repeatedly by different government agencies, describing the situation as the kind of unnecessary friction the National Single Window was designed to remove.
Oduwole said Phase Two would therefore bring export permits, certificates, licences, inspections, payments, free-zone procedures and other critical processes into a coordinated end-to-end system.
For exporters, she said, the objective was simple: fewer government interfaces, less paperwork, greater transparency and faster movement of goods from production to market.
She said government agencies would continue to perform their statutory responsibilities, but businesses should not be forced to navigate the internal complexity created by the multiplicity of government institutions.
‘That complexity is ours to solve, not theirs to carry. They should experience the Nigerian government as one,’ she said.
The minister said the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had begun by reviewing its own processes and the systems operated by its agencies and other relevant institutions.
She said the ministry was working with agencies including the Nigeria Customs Service and other stakeholders to align processes, identify areas where systems depend on one another and establish the milestones required to build an integrated export process.
Oduwole gave the participating agencies a firm assignment, saying each institution must know what it was expected to deliver under Phase Two, where it stood against agreed milestones, what remained outstanding and which agency or system was responsible for the next action.
She fixed the end of November 2026 as the deadline for the required deliverables.
‘By the close of this engagement, we must know what we own in the Phase Two journey, where we stand against agreed milestones, what remains outstanding, which institutions or systems we depend on and who owns the next action with a firm date,’ she said.
The minister also warned agencies against using vague descriptions of progress, insisting that every outstanding task must have a clear owner and completion date. ‘Ongoing is not a delivery status,’ she said.
She directed that technical and policy problems should be dealt with quickly, saying incomplete application programming interfaces, pending process decisions and policy issues requiring escalation should all be assigned timelines and resolved early.
Oduwole also called for government systems to be able to exchange information securely where one agency already holds data required by another.
She said the objective was not to take responsibilities away from individual institutions but to remove unnecessary duplication and make the overall process easier for businesses.
The minister said the real test of Phase Two would not be the number of government systems connected to the platform but the experience of exporters using it.
‘An exporter should know what is required, submit information once, track an application, make payment, obtain approvals and move a complete Nigerian product, a compliant Nigerian product, to market with greater speed,’ she said.
She warned that simply putting existing processes online would not be enough. ‘If exporters must still move between disconnected systems, enter the same information or carry approval between agencies, we may have digitised businesses, but we will not have transformed trade,’ she said.
Oduwole said the NSW should become a major infrastructure for improving the competitiveness of Nigerian exports.
She linked the project to President Bola Tinubu’s target of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030, saying such an ambition would require a trade system capable of moving goods efficiently and transparently from producers to markets.
She said the expected benefits included increased production, higher export earnings, more value addition and job creation.
The minister said the country’s trade reform agenda must therefore move the export process ‘from fragmentation to flow’ through clear responsibilities, firm deadlines and disciplined implementation.
Meanwhile, the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), Dr. Zacch Adedeji, directed all stakeholders involved in the export component of the second phase of the National Single Window to coordinate their activities, establish clear timelines and meet agreed milestones ahead of the November 2026 take-off.
Adedeji gave the directive at the stakeholders’ engagement on the NSW export project in Abuja on Wednesday, saying the November deadline required every participating institution to understand its responsibilities and deliver them on schedule.
‘In order to meet the November deadline, every stakeholder should know what they’re expected to do, when to deliver on their respective assignments and the expected deliverables ahead of the take-off date,’ he said.
The NRS chairman said the directive applied to all institutions and private-sector participants whose activities form part of the export process.
They include the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), importers, freight forwarders and clearing agents, airlines, shipping lines, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Adedeji said effective coordination among the stakeholders was necessary to ensure that the second phase did not suffer delays caused by disconnected processes or uncertainty over institutional responsibilities.
He said the export component of the National Single Window was particularly important because of its potential to make it easier for Nigerian businesses to access international markets and improve the efficiency of the country’s trade system.
The project is therefore expected to bring together the different regulatory and operational processes involved in exporting goods, reducing the need for businesses to deal separately with multiple agencies.