PEBEC Fights Apapa Port Extortion with Body Cameras for Truckers, Freight Forwarders
Director General of PEBEC, Princess Zahra Mustapha Audu
—Targets Reduced Cargo Dwell Time from 21 to 7-Days
The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has disclosed its readiness to equip Truck drivers and freight forwarders operating at Apapa Port with body cameras, so as to catch red-handed, state and non-state actors perpetuating extorting along the port corridor.
The Director-General of the Council, Zahrah Audu, made the disclosure while addressing State House correspondents on Tuesday.
According to her, the absence of footage of officials caught in the act of extortion had frustrated prosecution efforts during several rounds of enforcement visits since January.
“In addition to that, as we speak now, we have a stakeholder engagement with, which is for sensitisation of the truckers, because the truckers and the freight forwarders are the main people who are at the bane of the problem, who suffer from these issues from customs.
“We have already done some engagement, but we are having a more robust one in September or October. We are, in addition to that even giving them as one of the interventions that we are doing, body cams. We want evidence.”
“If and when we have evidence of rent-seeking or any malpractice, we will prosecute. We will work with the Attorney-General’s office to make sure we prosecute to the full extent of the law,” Audu said.
On cargo clearance, Audu said PEBEC was working to reduce Nigeria’s average cargo dwell time from 21 days to seven days, a target set by the Ports and Customs Efficiency Committee chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima and established in April 2025.
“Our average cargo dwell time was about 21 days, making us extremely uncompetitive if we compare ourselves to our neighbours in Ghana or Benin Republic. As a resolution from the committee, we were tasked to bring it down to seven days. It is a work in progress,” she stated.
She explained that some interventions the council had deployed toward that target include joint cargo inspection exercises that synchronise all agency checks at berth, a shift from physical cargo inspection to scanner-based processes, and the National Single Window, a unified digital platform that coordinates documentation across all agencies relevant to imports and exports.
She noted, “Any nation that is serious about growth needs to be concerned about the functionality within its ports corridor.”
