Tinubu Opens C-PACT Summit, Says Africa Must Break Inefficient Borders

 

...As African Customs Chiefs Meet in Abuja

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on Monday, 17 November 2025, charged African nations to dismantle inefficient borders, modernise their Customs systems and commit to a unified trade architecture capable of reshaping the continent’s economic future. 

Declaring open the maiden Customs Partnership for African Cooperation in Trade (C-PACT) Summit at the State House in Abuja, President Tinubu, represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, said Africa’s prosperity depends on deliberate reforms that convert its large market and population into a functional economic bloc.

Shettima told delegates that Africa must replace fragmented markets with coordinated policy implementation, stressing that every country must demonstrate political will, institutional alignment and the readiness to deploy technology that simplifies trade. 

He said, “The administration’s reform, exchange rate unification, fuel subsidy removal, port modernisation, and stronger Customs digitalisation, were designed to create a trade-friendly environment that could compete globally and power Nigeria’s continental ambitions.”

The VP stated that Nigeria’s National Single Window, set to go live in March 2026, will significantly reduce clearance timelines from 21 days to under seven, thereby fully aligning the country with the AfCFTA’s digital trade requirements and positioning Nigeria as a standard-setter in port automation. 

Shettima urged African governments to transform commitments into measurable outcomes that traders, manufacturers and logistics operators can feel daily, saying “Integration cannot be declared. It must be engineered.”

Speaking at the event, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said the extension of his mandate by President Tinubu included key performance indicators directly tied to the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). 

He stated that Nigeria’s Customs Service has, over the last three months, intensified its engagement with Customs administrations across Africa to ensure that Customs is properly integrated into the AfCFTA implementation structures.

He recalled recent engagements in Ghana with the AfCFTA Secretariat, emphasising that Customs must drive rules of origin enforcement, preferential duty implementation and trade preference administration, core elements that determine whether AfCFTA works in reality or remains aspirational. 

The CGC stated that implementing a free trade agreement requires significant capacity building and a strong political commitment, as it involves the progressive suspension of Customs duties among member states.

He explained that past regional integration efforts, including the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, suffered setbacks because participating countries failed to implement commitments consistently, stressing that AfCFTA must avoid that pattern.