The Federal Government has commenced a comprehensive review of overlapping regulations across its ministries, departments, and agencies, in a reform initiative designed to eliminate conflicting rules that impose unnecessary compliance costs on Nigerian businesses and undermine the consistency of the operating environment that investors and entrepreneurs depend on. The initiative, disclosed by The Cable this weekend, forms part of the administration’s broader effort to reduce the regulatory burden on the private sector and improve Nigeria’s standing on global business environment indicators.
Read also: Nigeria’s stock market hits record N163 tn as 2026 delivers 62% naira return for investors
The problem the reform is targeting
Nigeria’s regulatory landscape has evolved over decades through the layered addition of rules, mandates, and compliance requirements by dozens of government agencies, often without adequate coordination to prevent duplication or contradiction. A business operating in food processing, for instance, may face inspection and certification requirements from NAFDAC, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, state-level regulatory bodies, and local government revenue authorities, each with partially overlapping jurisdictions and separate fee structures.
The cumulative effect of that fragmentation is a compliance burden that costs Nigerian businesses significant time and money without producing proportionate regulatory benefit. For larger companies with dedicated compliance departments, the burden is manageable if expensive. For SMEs, it is often the deciding factor between operating formally and operating informally to avoid the cost.
The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council had previously taken steps to address specific elements of this problem, including its directive in 2026 that all MDAs halt new policy rollouts pending Regulatory Impact Analysis compliance. The current review extends that logic into the existing body of regulations, identifying where agencies are exercising overlapping authority and where compliance obligations can be rationalised without compromising their underlying policy objectives.
Overlapping regulations do not just cost businesses money. They create ambiguity about which agency has authority, which opens the door to discretionary enforcement, unofficial levies, and the kind of regulatory uncertainty that makes long-term business planning genuinely difficult.
What the review involves
The institutional reform exercise is examining the mandates of every federal ministry, department, and agency to identify areas where regulatory authority overlaps with other bodies, where compliance requirements duplicate those of other agencies, and where the regulatory framework can be simplified without undermining consumer protection, product safety, environmental standards, or financial system integrity.
Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele, who has been central to Nigeria’s tax reform programme and whose mandate extends to the business environment, is expected to play a coordinating role in the exercise alongside the PEBEC Secretariat. Oyedele’s track record on the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, which consolidated more than 60 taxes into fewer than 10 statutes, provides a practical precedent for the kind of rationalisation the current exercise is targeting across the regulatory landscape more broadly.
Read also: Nigeria’s tax reform architect Oyedele takes fiscal policy from design to delivery
What it could mean for Nigerian businesses
For the Nigerian business community, the credibility of this initiative will be measured by its outputs rather than its announcement. The most valuable outcomes would be a published register of simplified compliance requirements by sector, the elimination of specific conflicting mandates between named agencies, and a reduction in the total number of government bodies that any given business must deal with to operate legally.
For SMEs in particular, regulatory simplification that reduces the cost and complexity of compliance is as valuable as direct financial support. A business that can be registered, inspected, certified, and permitted through a coordinated single-window process spends less money on compliance and more on production, employment, and growth.
Every naira a Nigerian SME spends navigating conflicting regulations is a naira not spent on inventory, wages, or investment. Regulatory reform is not soft policy. It is a direct intervention in the cost structure of every business operating in the formal economy.
