By Sufuyan Ojeifo
For decades, Nigeria’s public procurement system laboured under an unenviable reputation. It was widely perceived as a creaking colonial inheritance, labyrinthine in process, porous in execution, and more feared as a bureaucratic choke point than respected as a tool of governance. Procurement was something to be survived, not something to be leveraged.
That understanding changed decisively in November 2024 following the appointment of Dr Adebowale A. Adedokun as Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
Under Adedokun’s leadership, Nigeria embarked on an ambitious effort to reposition procurement from a procedural gatekeeper into a strategic engine of national development. Aligned firmly with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the objective was nothing less than a systemic transformation.
A little over twelve months later, what has emerged is an interlocking architecture of reform. Digital by design. Rules with real consequence. Markets that reward value rather than proximity. And a procurement ecosystem increasingly conscious of its power to shape the economy, not merely police it.
■ Rules first, technology next
To be clear, the reform journey began where it had to begin: with the rules.
Service-wide prior-review and monetary thresholds were comprehensively reviewed, modernising parameters that had long lost touch with economic realities. The result was not deregulation but smarter oversight. Procurement cycles across ministries, departments, and agencies were shortened, bottlenecks eased, and compliance with the Public Procurement Act (PPA) strengthened rather than diluted.
Standard Bidding Documents were revised and redeployed nationwide. This seemingly technical intervention has had an outsized impact. Ambiguity has narrowed. Discretion has been constrained. Competition has become fairer and easier to defend.
More consequential still was the introduction of a National Debarment Policy. For the first time, Nigeria’s procurement system acquired a structured sanctions regime for non-performance and fraud. This was not merely administrative housekeeping. It was a signal that the era of consequence-free procurement malpractice was drawing to a close.
Running alongside these measures is the development of a harmonised amendment to the PPA 2007. The proposed changes strengthen sanctions, mandate digital procurement, deepen transparency, and align Nigeria’s framework with global best practice. It is an attempt to give Nigerian procurement what it has historically lacked: authority backed by enforceability.
If regulation defines intent, technology enforces discipline. This principle is embodied in the e-Government Procurement (e-GP) system. Conceived as an end-to-end digital platform, it covers planning, tendering, evaluation, contract award, and certification.
When fully operational, the system will do what policy circulars rarely achieve. It will reduce human interference, compress timelines, lower transaction costs, and create immutable audit trails. Procurement becomes traceable by default, not by exception.
Complementing this is the Nigeria e-Market initiative, a digital marketplace designed to standardise cataloguing and pricing of goods and services. It directly confronts one of procurement’s oldest vulnerabilities: price opacity.
This digital shift is reinforced by the establishment of a dedicated Price Intelligence and Benchmarking Unit within the BPP. For the first time, price review is being treated as a professional discipline rather than an intuitive exercise. The fiscal dividends are already visible.
Between January and December 2025, the BPP realised cost savings of approximately one point one trillion naira (₦1.1 trillion) for the Federal Government through improved benchmarking, tighter due-process reviews, reduced inflation of contract values, and increased competition driven by better documentation and transparency.
In June 2025 alone, the upgraded National Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) delivered savings exceeding one hundred and seventy-three billion naira (₦173 billion), alongside foreign-currency savings of approximately one hundred and fifty-five million dollars ($155 million) and one point seven million euros (€1.7 million). NOCOPO has evolved from a transparency platform into a digital watchdog, placing procurement information squarely in the hands of citizens and civil society.
■ Procurement as economic and industrial strategy
What distinguishes this reform cycle is its unapologetic embrace of procurement as industrial and social policy.
The Nigeria First Policy is being developed to intentionally prioritise local content, domestic manufacturing, small and medium enterprises, women-owned businesses, and innovation-driven firms. Procurement is no longer neutral. It is deliberately developmental.
This philosophy is reinforced by the forthcoming Affirmative Procurement Framework. By addressing structural barriers faced by women, youth, persons with disabilities and community-based enterprises, the framework expands participation without sacrificing competition or value for money. Inclusion here is not sentiment. It is market correction.
Moreover, sector-specific procurement frameworks for information technology, roads, health, education, power, and service contracts are in advanced stages of deployment. They recognise a simple truth. Uniform rules across unequal sectors invite abuse.
The National Guideline on the Procurement of Food is another quietly radical intervention. By standardising food procurement for schools, hospitals, internally displaced persons’ camps, and federal institutions, the BPP is tackling leakages in one of the most recurrent and politically sensitive areas of public expenditure. Food procurement is no longer an informal routine. It is a governed policy.
Beyond policy design, the reform agenda has deliberately constructed an integrated procurement-led industrial ecosystem.
Collaboration with the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) is harmonising a single authentic list of qualified local vehicle manufacturers and assemblers. This list will be embedded in procurement guidelines and the e-GP system, ensuring that public demand supports genuine domestic capacity.
Partnerships with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) are directing procurement demand towards locally developed and adapted technologies, from solar infrastructure to agricultural machinery and laboratory equipment.
The revision of the policy on tropicalised health and medical equipment, undertaken with the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), addresses a long-standing source of waste. Equipment procured with public funds must now be suited to Nigeria’s climate, infrastructure, and maintenance realities.
Collaboration with the Equipment Leasing Registration Authority (ELRA) and the Bank of Industry (BOI) completes the circle. Leasing frameworks prioritise locally manufactured equipment, while financing schemes ensure manufacturers and leasing companies can scale to meet demand.
The logic is straightforward. The BPP generates demand through policy. NASENI and NADDC support supply. SON certifies standards. ELRA structures acquisition. BOI provides financing. Public expenditure becomes industrial policy in motion.
■ Institutions, credibility, and the long view
As experience has shown, reform collapses without people who understand it. Over the past year, the BPP institutionalised continuous capacity building for procurement officers, auditors, contractors, civil society organisations, and the media. Thousands have been trained nationwide through certification programmes and international collaborations.
Control over the mobility of procurement officers has been restored to the BPP, strengthening professionalism and reducing vulnerability to external pressure. The Contractors, Consultants, and Service Providers database is being comprehensively upgraded to deliver credible profiling, performance histories, and sanctions records. A National Repository of Procurement Experts and Agents is also taking shape, creating a reliable pool of professional advisory capacity for both federal and sub-national entities.
Perhaps the most far-reaching institutional reform is the planned introduction of a mandatory national licensing regime for procurement officers. Licensing professionalises the ecosystem, links competence to accountability, and ties career progression to ethical practice. Only trained and certified professionals will manage public procurement. Institutional memory is being deliberately built.
Turnaround time for procurement reviews has been capped at twenty-one days. More importantly, the Bureau is moving from measuring time to managing efficiency, supported by process re-engineering and the automation embedded in the forthcoming e-GP system.
Nigeria’s procurement reforms are also being benchmarked against global standards. Under Dr Adedokun’s leadership, the country commenced the Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems in collaboration with international partners.
This commitment to excellence received international recognition in 2025 when the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) named Dr Adedokun among its fifteen global Procurement Pioneers. It was recognition not of promise but of delivery.
Through the World Bank-supported Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement (SPESSE) project, procurement excellence is being embedded in Nigerian universities via accredited undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. This is reform with a generational horizon. A domestic pipeline of world-class procurement professionals is being deliberately cultivated.
Even the Bureau’s temporary relocation to the Bank of Industry building, necessitated by the renovation of its headquarters, reflects the reform ethos. Operations continued seamlessly. Resources were managed prudently. Substance took precedence over symbolism.
After one year, the story of Nigeria’s procurement reform is one of clear, and straightforward architecture. Rules reinforced by technology. Policy aligned with production. Savings translated into credibility. Inclusion treated as economic sense rather than charity.
In repositioning the Bureau of Public Procurement, Dr Adebowale Adedokun has demonstrated that the most consequential reforms are often the least theatrical. When procurement works, roads appear, hospitals endure, schools function, industries grow, and public money stops leaking and starts building.
That is not a footnote in national development. It is the foundation.
■ Sufuyan Ojeifo is a journalist, publisher, and communication consultant.
