AfCFTA Certificate Of Origin Processing Now Takes 24 Hours, Nigeria Says

Nigeria says it has cut the processing time for African Continental Free Trade Area Certificates of Origin from more than five days to 24 hours, a change it attributes to the digitisation and automation of the documentation chain covering registration, verification and certification by the Nigeria Customs Service.

The National Coordinator and Chief Executive of the Nigeria AfCFTA Coordination Office, Mrs. Patience Okala, disclosed the turnaround reduction at the 2026 third-quarter meeting of the AfCFTA Central Coordination Committee in Abuja. The certificate is the document Nigerian exporters use to seek preferential treatment under the continental trade agreement, so faster processing removes a concrete documentation bottleneck for cross-border shipments.

Okala said the office has also facilitated the resolution of eight reported cases of non-tariff barriers affecting businesses trading under AfCFTA since the second-quarter meeting, with a detailed report on the cases presented at the session. She added that the AfCFTA Secretariat has formally requested Nigeria to lead a peer-learning session on AfCFTA implementation for other African countries at the next set of institutional meetings in Zimbabwe, a development she described as continental recognition of Nigeria’s coordinating role.

Trade and Industry Minister Dr. Jumoke Oduwole used the same meeting to argue that Nigerian goods remain competitive on the continent, citing a trade mission to Botswana with about 11 Nigerian businesses during which one company immediately secured an order for 6,000 T-shirts. She said a survey of 13 eastern and southern African countries found demand for shea butter products, zobo drink, plantain chips, female apparel and wigs, and pointed to an air cargo corridor opened with Uganda Air last year, with another airline added this year.

The 24-hour figure remains an attribution from the coordination office rather than an independently measured turnaround, and exporters still need to confirm the operational portal, eligibility conditions and customs requirements for their shipments. Even so, cutting a certificate process from days to hours, if sustained, directly shortens the time Nigerian goods spend in documentation before crossing African borders.

Source: Leadership