Mfum Single Border Control Point: Cameroon, Nigeria CUSTOMS commit to facilitate cross-border trade, strengthen security.

This was during a strategic working visit the Director General of Customs in Cameroon, Fongod Edwin Nuvaga, paid to the Mfum Single Border Control Point.

During the field inspection, the Cameroon Customs boss was accompanied by a large official entourage. 

Among those accompanying him were the Head of the South West Customs Sector, Daniel Mongue Nyamsi; Commander of the South-West Customs Operational Group, Achille Kamdem; the Head of the Ekok Senior Customs Office, Athanasius Eddia Njenge, and the Head of the Research Unit, Ndefru Angwafo.

The Mfum Single Border Control Point, it should be recalled, is also known as Mfum/Ekok Joint Border Post. It is a critical international border crossing linking Nigeria and Cameroon.

It is located at Mfum in Cross River State, Nigeria, and Ekok in the South West Region of Cameroon and serves as a unified gateway designed to streamline customs, security, and immigration protocols between the two nations

The main objective of the visit, it was revealed, was to assess the operational effectiveness of the joint customs infrastructure, to facilitate cross-border trade and to strengthen security in this area, which is highly strategic for the sub-region’s economy.

During the visit, the delegation toured the facilities at the Mfum single customs post, a model of bilateral integration designed to simplify customs formalities between Cameroon and Nigeria.

The Director General of Customs, Fongod Edwin, commended the efforts of the local teams whilst emphasising the need to step up controls in the face of security challenges and smuggling.

The joint presence of Cameroon’s Director General of Customs and his Nigerian counterpart, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, along with their staff and the defence forces of both countries, demonstrates the importance attached to this border.

The visit, it should be recalled, comes barely one month after a joint benchmarking visit to Beitbridge in Zimbabwe, on the border with South Africa.

It is important to recall that customs chiefs from Cameroon, Nigeria, and Benin completed a joint benchmarking visit to Zimbabwe’s Beitbridge Border Post from July 23 to 27, 2026, to study its modernization model for application in West and Central Africa

The experience, we gathered, has prompted Nigeria and Cameroon to reaffirm their commitment to rigorously applying the lessons learnt. The two customs administrations took the opportunity to establish new deployment strategies to achieve the intended objectives.

This visit, we gathered, concluded on a note of overall satisfaction. Both parties made firm recommendations aimed at making the Mfum post a model of modern customs governance, a catalyst for the development of trade along the Bamenda-Enugu trans-African route, and a benchmark for coordinated border management in West and Central Africa. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3905 of Thursday September 10, 2026