Importers and clearing agents are bleeding money at Nigerian seaports, paying up to N100,000 every day in demurrage charges while waiting for approvals that should have already arrived. The National Single Window (NSW) platform, designed to speed up cargo clearance, is instead creating massive bottlenecks that trap goods at terminals for weeks.
Lucky Amiwero, who leads the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, told Vanguard the platform has made things worse, not better. The delays come from regulatory agencies like NAFDAC and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), whose approvals move at a crawl even though the NSW was supposed to centralise everything.
"The National Single Window is not effective," Amiwero said. "What we have now is more of a multiple-window system that duplicates Customs functions." He explained that a real single-window system should mean one administration, one transaction, one delivery. Instead, importers still jump between different agencies, defeating the entire point.
The problem runs deeper than just slow paperwork. Amiwero believes the Nigerian Revenue Service, which runs the NSW initiative, doesn't have the expertise to manage customs operations. Tax administration and import procedures should stay separate, he argued. Some consignments sit in terminals for two or three weeks waiting for approvals, costing importers fortunes in demurrage to shipping companies and terminal operators.
"Some importers are paying close to N100,000 daily in demurrage because their cargoes remain uncleared for two or three weeks," Amiwero said. "Government needs to review the system and properly harmonise the process."
The NSW director of communications, Tola Fakolade, pushed back on the criticism. He said much of the resistance comes from businesses unhappy about stricter compliance rules now in place. He also clarified that the first phase of NSW was never meant to guarantee one-day approvals for everything.
"What we promised was a unified entry point where importers and stakeholders can process documentation seamlessly without moving from one agency office to another," Fakolade said. He acknowledged that some agencies inherited backlogs before the NSW went live, creating delays that persist today.
Fakolade singled out NAFDAC as an example. The agency had a backlog of pending applications before the NSW launched, and though it is now working through them, the delays continue to affect importers. He said ongoing efforts aim to resolve these implementation challenges, but gave no timeline for when the system would run smoothly.
The customs agents are calling for a complete review and proper harmonisation of the backend processes. Without that, they argue, cargo will keep piling up and importers will keep paying thousands daily for the privilege of waiting.
