President Bola Tinubu has welcomed the selection of a subsidiary of Nigerian-owned Bergmans Security Consultant and Supplies Limited to implement a 20-year, multi-billion-dollar AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project.
The project will be executed by AfriTrade CMP Limited, a subsidiary of Bergmans, and will involve the installation of digital and physical infrastructure to streamline customs operations, improve cargo tracking, strengthen border management and facilitate trade-data exchange across participating African countries.
Another Bergmans subsidiary, Trade Modernisation Project Limited, is responsible for Nigeria’s domestic customs modernisation programme.
President Tinubu said the development demonstrated Nigeria’s capacity to develop solutions capable of serving the wider African market.
“What has been built and tested in Nigeria is now providing a model for the continent,” Tinubu said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Bayo Onanuga.
“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.”
The President said his administration would continue to create opportunities for capable Nigerian businesses to compete domestically and internationally under the Nigeria First policy.
“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,” he added.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene, who was in Abuja for the agreement, also visited the headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service to inspect the Nigerian programme.
Members of the Senate Committee on Customs, led by Senator Jibrin Isah, joined the visit after concluding a 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 said the AfCFTA had opted for an African solution despite receiving offers from non-African companies.
Senator Isah said members of his committee had become ambassadors of the system after witnessing its operations.
B’Odogwu, which was first piloted in October 2024, has become a key component of Nigeria’s customs modernisation efforts 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.
“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,” Tinubu said.
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