‘Fix Nigeria’s Single Window, Don’t Abandon It’ – SEREC

BY KESIENNA SHEPHERDS

The Sea Empowerment & Research Centre (SEREC), a leading maritime policy, research and industry advocacy organisation, has urged stakeholders in Nigeria’s international trade sector to resist calls for the premature condemnation of the National Single Window (NSW), insisting that the ambitious trade facilitation project should be improved, strengthened and made fully functional rather than abandoned.

In a position paper issued on Thursday, and signed by its Head of Research, Frwdr Eugene Nweke, SEREC said while concerns over alleged “dual clearing”, parallel manual processes, institutional resistance and other operational deficiencies surrounding the NSW deserved serious scrutiny, such criticisms must be subjected to empirical evidence and technical evaluation.

The organisation maintained that the NSW remained a strategically important national reform capable of transforming Nigeria’s trade environment through the reduction of documentary duplication, improved inter-agency data exchange, better risk management and greater predictability for legitimate traders.

According to SEREC, the operational challenges encountered during Phase One should not automatically be interpreted as proof that the architecture of the project is fundamentally defective.

It said the appropriate response should be “evidence-based diagnosis, correction, integration and progressive optimisation”, stressing that Nigeria had already crossed an important threshold by moving the Single Window from policy aspiration towards operational reality.

SEREC, however, acknowledged that digitising fragmented processes without harmonising them could merely reproduce bureaucracy electronically. It therefore called for greater attention to business-process re-engineering, data standardisation, API interoperability, risk-management integration, system reliability, cybersecurity, data governance and end-to-end cargo visibility as the project progresses.

The organisation also took exception to the blanket classification of physical cargo interventions following electronic processing as evidence of “dual clearing”.

It argued that the generation of a digital release should not automatically extinguish the statutory enforcement powers of the Nigeria Customs Service and other competent government agencies.

Nigeria’s ports, it noted, are not only commercial gateways but also regulatory control points and national security frontiers, making legitimate physical interventions necessary in cases involving intelligence alerts, prohibited or restricted goods, examination orders, post-clearance audit and other statutory requirements.

SEREC nevertheless stressed that such interventions must be lawful, necessary, risk-based, properly documented and subject to accountability.

It warned that arbitrary, repetitive or undocumented physical intervention after regulatory requirements have been satisfied would undermine the very trade facilitation objectives of the NSW and should be eliminated.

The organisation proposed a guiding principle of “One Cargo – One Digital Identity – One Data Submission – Multiple Authorised, Risk-Based Controls – One Coordinated Release Decision.”

It said this would allow agencies including Customs, NAFDAC, SON, NDLEA, NPA and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to access relevant information through an interoperable platform while retaining their respective statutory mandates.

SEREC further called for the introduction of a transparent Trade Compliance and Intervention Performance Framework to measure the frequency, legality, justification and outcomes of physical interventions.

Such a framework, it said, would help distinguish genuine risk-based enforcement from unnecessary duplication while progressively reducing manual interventions as compliance within the trade ecosystem improves.

On allegations of institutional resistance to the NSW, SEREC urged caution, saying claims of deliberate sabotage, administrative empires or rent-seeking should be supported by verifiable evidence.

Where there is evidence of unlawful obstruction, extortion or unauthorised parallel processes, the organisation said such conduct should be investigated and sanctioned.

However, it argued that challenges arising from legacy databases, incomplete systems integration, staff adaptation, data-quality problems, infrastructure limitations and cybersecurity requirements should be treated as implementation-management challenges rather than automatically labelled institutional conspiracy.

Looking ahead, SEREC called for a comprehensive Phase-One Lessons-Learned and Readiness Assessment before further expansion of the NSW architecture.

It said the assessment should establish what has worked, identify remaining duplications, determine which manual interventions are legally necessary or avoidable, assess data transmission failures and user delays, and quantify reductions in cargo processing time and cost.

The organisation also advocated greater involvement of the trading community and technical stakeholders in reviewing the findings.

SEREC said the ultimate objective should be a trade environment where compliant traders enjoy speed, transparency and predictability, while non-compliant and high-risk consignments are identified through intelligence-driven systems and subjected to proportionate and legally authorised intervention.

“The question should no longer be whether the NSW should exist,” SEREC said, stressing that the focus should now be on “how quickly, intelligently and transparently we can make it work better.”

The organisation urged the NSW Secretariat, Nigeria Customs Service and other participating agencies to regard credible complaints from industry as sources of operational intelligence, while encouraging industry stakeholders to give the reform sufficient professional space to correct identified deficiencies.

SEREC concluded that the NSW was a desirable national transformative project within Nigeria’s international trade, port and security ecosystem, stressing that its perfection was a continuing process rather than a finished product.

It called on all stakeholders to remain deliberate in supporting its successful and conclusive implementation in the overall interest of Nigeria’s trade facilitation, maritime economy and national development.