The Customs Consultative Committee (CCC) has urged the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to address challenges affecting its smooth migration to the B’Odogwu portal.
The Secretary of CCC, Eugene Nweke, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Friday in Abuja.
NAN reports that B’Odogwu is a locally developed Unified Customs Management System aimed at streamlining port operations, reducing processing time, and enhancing revenue collection.
The NCS implemented a pilot phase of B’Odogwu at the Port and Terminal Multiservice Limited (PTML), in October 2024 and recently rolled out to Tin Can and Apapa ports.
The system is expected to replace the current Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS II) and integrate with the National Single Window, alongside modernising NCS`s operations, enhancing efficiency and inter-agency collaboration.
Nweke noted that the B’Odogwu portal, developed by the NCS ahead of the 2026 National Single Window rollout, was facing migration challenges that threatens its efficiency
“ While this migration aims to enhance trade facilitation, it has introduced its own set of challenges. Despite the NCS team’s efforts to address these issues, human barriers and technical limitations persist.
“The experience of the Asycuda++ system, developed by Web Fontaine serves as a cautionary tale. The system’s optic server hosted in orbit was overwhelmed by the workload resulting in incessant system breakdowns.
“ A ministerial committee on port efficiency in 2011 identified the server’s limitations as a major bottleneck.
“Unfortunately, the same optic server infrastructure is still driving the NICIS I, NICIS II, and B’Odogwu portals, hence the need to seriously consider an infrastructure change in this regard, “ he explained.
According to the CCC official, it is essential to prioritise the development of robust and scalable trade facilitation tools that can accommodate the growing volume of trade transactions.
He urged the NCS and relevant stakeholders to work together to address the technical challenges and human barriers that hinder the effective implementation of these tools.
“By doing so, we can promote compliance, reduce costs, and enhance the overall efficiency of the supply chain. Most importantly, the situation at hand doesn’t call for condemnation, rather a deliberate sacrifice and support”, he said.
