Nigeria and Cameroon have launched a new effort to modernise the Mfum–Ekok border crossing, targeting customs delays, duplicate inspections and infrastructure constraints along one of the main trade routes connecting West and Central Africa.
The Mfum–Ekok Border Modernisation Initiative follows a joint assessment of the One-Stop Border Post by the Nigeria Customs Service and Cameroon Customs Administration on September 8.
According to reports, the programme will focus on technology-driven customs processes, improved border infrastructure and closer coordination between both administrations.
Cutting Duplicate Border Checks
Nigeria’s Comptroller-General of Customs Adewale Adeniyi said existing bilateral cooperation provides a foundation for a wider regional model.
“We are not building from nothing. We are taking something that works between the two of us and asking whether it can be made to work for the region and hopefully for our continent,” Adeniyi said.
Press reports indicate that technical teams are preparing a joint operational agreement around the Mfum–Ekok border crossing, while the two customs administrations recently studied the Beitbridge border between South Africa and Zimbabwe for lessons in coordinated border management.
Cameroon Customs Director-General Fongod Edwin Nuvaga has called for real-time data exchange and joint risk-management systems so cargo and travellers can be processed once rather than repeatedly inspected on both sides of the border.
The Cameroon Customs Administration said the aim is to make Mfum a model of modern customs governance while supporting trade along the wider Bamenda–Enugu trans-African route.
Trade Costs Go Beyond Tariffs
The Mfum–Ekok border reforms address a wider problem facing African trade.
A recent World Bank report estimates that around 60% of Africa’s trade costs arise behind national borders, including customs inefficiencies, weak logistics, fragmented standards and infrastructure constraints.
Existing physical investment at the Nigeria–Cameroon crossing has already been substantial. The African Development Bank provided $120 million towards the Bamenda–Enugu road corridor and Cross River border bridge, which opened in 2022.
A Wider AfCFTA Customs Push
The bilateral initiative also comes as AfCFTA moves towards continent-wide customs digitisation.
In August, the AfCFTA Secretariat signed a $3.1 billion, 20-year customs-modernisation concession with Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Limited covering digital customs systems, electronic information exchange, cargo tracking and coordinated border management.
“We have a singular and shared ambition… to position customs systems in Africa to be digital,” AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said in the official announcement.
Bergmans Chairman Saleh Ahmadu said the goal was to build “secure, efficient and scalable trade infrastructure across Africa”.
For Nigeria and Cameroon, Mfum–Ekok offers an immediate test of that broader ambition: turning regional trade agreements into faster, more predictable movement of goods at the border.
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