When the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) was established through Act No. 16 of 2007, the intention was clear and laudable. The Federal Government envisioned a regulator that would professionalise freight forwarding, standardise practice, strengthen compliance, elevate training, and align the Nigerian industry with global best practices.
It was designed to be a professional council like COREN, NIPR, or ICAN responsible for setting standards, enforcing discipline, and building capacity within an industry central to trade facilitation.
Yet today, nearly two decades after its creation, the CRFFN stands weakened, structurally inadequate, financially incapacitated, and struggling to command the respect of the very industry it was designed to regulate. The most painful truth is that many of the Council’s failures were built into its foundation. The Act that created CRFFN is riddled with structural deficiencies that have hindered its autonomy, compromised its effectiveness, and left it unable to fulfil its own mandate.
One of the earliest and most crippling flaws of the CRFFN Act was its silence on a reliable funding structure. The Council began operations with absolutely no funds. It was forced to beg for financial support from sister agencies, a humiliating reality for a statutory regulator.
This newspaper recalls that the first governing council election was officially sponsored by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, because CRFFN simply had no money to organise it. And from that moment, the principle became clear: whoever pays the bill dictates the terms. The regulator became dependent on other agencies for functions it was created to oversee independently.
The consequences of this dependency have persisted. The CRFFN Registrar himself has lamented repeatedly that the Council is financially incapacitated and unable to execute many of its statutory duties. A regulator that is broke cannot enforce discipline, cannot build capacity, and cannot command industry respect.
To address this financial vacuum, the Federal Government eventually approved that the ingenious Practitioners Operating Fee (POF) must be collected and paid by all practicing freight forwarders. The order was intended to provide CRFFN with sustainable financing for its operations, training, monitoring, and enforcement. Yet compliance has remained weak, partly because the Council lacks the enforcement power and credibility to drive full implementation.
We recall too that, in order to encourage its take-off, at minimal cost to the Federal Government, the CRFFN engaged a private consultant/partner – SW Global (SWG) under a public-private partnership (PPP) deal, to provide an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.
Till date, the ownership structure of SW Global remains unclear, raising serious questions of accountability. The relationship between the duo has been unequal since it was consummated.
In public governance, the law recognises names; companies have directors, corporate entities have traceable owners. But the identity and structure of SW Global are hidden behind a veil that even CRFFN struggles to pierce through.
When a private consultant appears more powerful than its principal, then the system has failed. We sympathise with the CRFFN Registrar, Mr. Kingsley Igwe. He cannot fight such a battle alone, and without strong backing from the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy and the larger industry, the Council remains trapped in an unequal relationship.
Part of the failure of CRFFN to assert its regulatory mandate is due to poor compliance by practitioners. For example, although the POF is approved and legally-collectible, compliance is low, as only a small fraction of freight-forwarders still pay the fee. CRFFN itself has lamented that revenue collected from POF , which should have been used for regulatory enforcement, training, capacity building, and infrastructural development, was under-declared and mismanaged; at one point, staff were unpaid for ten months.
Inevitably, such ineffectiveness has eroded trust. Some major stakeholder groups now view CRFFN as dormant, inefficient, or even “a hindrance rather than a help.” When regulated practitioners no longer respect or trust the regulator, the regulatory system collapses, not because the law is invalid, but because the mechanism for its enforcement is hollow.
It does not help that the freight-forwarding profession in Nigeria suffers from chronic issues: a low entry barrier, proliferation of unqualified practitioners, multiple feuding associations, weak professionalism, and lack of a coherent industry culture. Even the expertise and training credentials expected under CRFFN, through certification programmes and accreditation under international standards (such as International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations — FIATA) , have struggled to take root in a fragmented, under-regulated sector.
Compounding these challenges is CRFFN’s governing council structure, which has since inception become bloated, expensive, and inefficient. The governing council is far larger than that of many sister agencies, consuming resources that CRFFN can neither spare nor justify.
Instead of a lean, professional, focused team capable of providing direction and oversight, the Council has often been filled with individuals who are more interested in allowances and influences, than in reforming the freight forwarding industry. This has contributed to high administrative overhead, but low productivity.
The Council cannot continue like this. Without urgent structural reform, CRFFN risks becoming irrelevant, a regulator in name only.
Amending the CRFFN Act is no longer an option; it is an absolute necessity. The Act must be ammended to clearly define sustainable funding mechanisms, including a fully transparent and enforceable POF system in line with the Federal Government’s order. It must include strong accountability provisions to ensure that any public-private partnership, including that with SW Global, is subjected to full disclosure, measurable performance, and statutory oversight. The governing council must be pruned to a manageable, cost-effective size comparable to other regulatory bodies. Enforcement powers must be strengthened, enabling CRFFN to sanction unregistered practitioners, enforce training standards, and ensure POF compliance in collaboration with customs and port authorities.
The envisioned amended Act must also restore the Council’s professional essence. Freight forwarding should be a disciplined, regulated profession with clear qualifications, defined ethics, and continuous training, just like every other professional field. Only a structurally empowered CRFFN can drive this transformation.
In conclusion, the CRFFN stands at a critical crossroads. It can either continue on its current path, a path marked by financial weakness, structural flaws, industry distrust, opaque partnerships, and regulatory inertia, or it can embrace a new direction through a comprehensive amendment of its enabling Act.
The freight-forwarding industry is too important to national trade, revenue, and supply-chain efficiency to be left as it is currently. The Federal Government, the Ministry, the industry, and stakeholders must rally behind the urgent reform of the CRFFN Act. Only then can the Council rise from its limitations and fulfil the vision that inspired its creation.
