By Usman Garba Abubakar
Sokoto State has placed an ambitious yet practical bet on reforms as the fastest route to economic growth. Its Business Enabling Reforms Action Plan (BERAP) is the state’s pact with businesses, investors, and residents: a time-bound programme that aligns ministries, streamlines rules, digitizes public services, and removes friction from markets. Framed within the Federal Government/World Bank-supported State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) programme (2023–2025), BERAP is both a state blueprint and a performance contract one that ties measurable outcomes to national and multilateral support.
Nigeria’s economic geography is increasingly shaped by subnational competitiveness. States that make it faster to register property, get permits, connect to broadband, resolve disputes, and pay taxes attract investment; those that don’t, lose it. SABER was designed for precisely this moment: to incentivize state-level reforms in land administration, digital infrastructure (especially fibre), investment promotion/PPP readiness, tax administration, and the business regulatory environment.
Sokoto’s BERAP translates those national priorities into an actionable, state-specific plan with deadlines, lead agencies, and quantifiable targets.
Sokoto’s plan distils its agenda into four reform areas and eight key indicators that touch the pain points most frequently cited by entrepreneurs and investors:
Improve land administration and the land investment process.
Increase fibre-optic deployment and access to broadband.
Stimulate sustainable large-scale investment (PPP and promotion).
Speed up the determination of commercial disputes.
Across these pillars, the state commits to: (i) operationalize a digital land administration backbone (SOGIS), (ii) publish transparent Right-of-Way (RoW) processes and timelines to accelerate fibre builds, (iii) strengthen PPP and investment promotion pipelines, (iv) standardize fees and service-level agreements (SLAs) across “Business-Enabling Enterprises” (BEEs), (v) simplify and digitize taxes, (vi) expand exporter certification and interstate trade facilitation, and (vii) decentralize and monitor Small Claims Courts (SCCs).
Land is collateral, and collateral unlocks credit. Sokoto’s bet is that digitizing the land titling chain will shrink timelines, reduce uncertainty, and deepen credit access. The Sokoto Geographic Information System (SOGIS)—recently renovated and fully automated—now anchors this push. The upgraded facility (commissioned in mid-2025) was reported at roughly ₦698.4 million and is positioned to deliver automated Certificates of Occupancy (C of O), applicant dashboards for real-time tracking, and digitally verifiable titles with barcodes. State leaders argue the platform raises transparency to “global standard” and signals to investors that Sokoto is serious about land governance.
BERAP 2025 turns those capabilities into specific targets:
Cut average C of O processing time from 120 days to 60 days (two months).
Digitize and index 100% of new C of Os issued in 2025 and build a robust digital archive for C of Os and building permits.
Train operational staff (initially 10 personnel) and institutionalize monitoring and evaluation of system performance.
Lead agencies include the Ministry of Lands, Housing & Survey and SOGIS, with the Sokoto Urban & Regional Planning Board and Internal Revenue Service in supporting roles. The intended beneficiaries are property developers, landowners, financial institutions, and by extension, MSMEs whose growth depends on bankable collateral.
This is not a cosmetic e-government move. Nigeria’s broader reform community has long identified land administration as a critical constraint on the ease of doing business; credible, searchable records and predictable timelines reduce disputes and underwriting risk. Sokoto’s concrete two-month target matters because it is observable and bank-relevant.
Modern firms (from logistics to aggrotech) need bandwidth as much as they need roads. Sokoto’s second pillar therefore aims to increase fibre-optic deployment and access to broadband by making the Right-of-Way (RoW) process transparent, affordable, and predictable. Under BERAP 2025, the state will compile and publish (on the official website) all steps, timelines, MDAs involved, and costs for RoW; it also sets a 7-day completion window for all revenue payments tied to RoW applications—a small but valuable certainty for operators planning trenching schedules and financing drawdowns.
This aligns with federal efforts like the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria (NBAN), which seeks to accelerate fibre builds nationwide by coordinating states and private providers, and with the broader policy push across states to reduce RoW friction so that capital flows where rules are clearest. The lesson from early-moving states is simple: when RoW is transparent and quick, fiber-route planning gets easier—and investment follows. Sokoto’s codified timelines and disclosure requirements move it into that investment-ready posture.
Large-scale investments require pipelines, not wish lists. BERAP 2025 creates a PPP project preparation window to fund early-stage development (feasibility, business cases, transaction advisory), improve viability, and unlock additional financing. The plan sets first-quarter 2025 milestones: identify candidate PPP projects, define eligibility criteria, launch funding applications, and secure executive approvals. The Bureau for Public Procurement & Public-Private Partnership (BPP & PPP) and the Sokoto Investment Company Limited anchor this effort, with the Ministry of Justice, the State House of Assembly, and the Chamber of Commerce involved.
This is a classic “de-risking” play: when the state funds credible preparation and publishes due-process guidelines, private capital can price risk, lenders can model cash flows, and projects move from concept to bankability. Sokoto’s website now publicly hosts key PPP documents (contractor guidelines, PPP pipeline teasers, complaint procedures), which not only meet SABER transparency criteria but also help market projects to investors who demand predictability and recourse.
The plan identifies five Business-Enabling Enterprises (BEEs), BPP & PPP, Sokoto Water Board, Sokoto Urban & Regional Planning Board (SURPB), Internal Revenue Service, and the Ministry of Commerce, Trade & Industry, and requires them to publish procedures, fees, and SLAs for their services, while strengthening digital grievance redress mechanisms. BERAP sets time-bound service targets, including:
Business Premises Registration within 24 hours after revenue payment.
BPP/PPP clearances within 48 hours; Water Board permits within 48 hours; Revenue clearances within 24 hours; and SURPB certifications within 48 hours.
These are the sorts of mundane but catalytic time-savers that reduce the cost of compliance and free up entrepreneurs to focus on operations.
Sokoto wants to increase the number of NEPC-certified exporters by ~20% (from 150 to 200) and reduce registration time from one week to real-time (24 hours) via a unified, auditable process. Standardizing fees for interstate trade and conducting regular audits are meant to strip out arbitrary costs and signal that Sokoto is not a high-friction state for moving goods. The Ministry of Commerce leads, with Customs, IRS, VIO, banks, and the Chamber of Commerce as partners.
On taxes, BERAP 2025 emphasizes code reviews, a unified filing system, and training for both officials and taxpayers.
Crucially, the state commits to making tax schedules and payment instructions available in real time (24/7) across BEEs and enabling bank and online payments. The Sokoto Internal Revenue Service leads, with local governments and service-heavy agencies (Water Board, BPP & PPP, SURPB) integrating their fee schedules and receipt mechanisms. For MSMEs that typically lose days to reconcile obligations across multiple offices, anytime visibility and single-point payment reduce errors and late fees.
Commercial certainty requires credible, speedy dispute resolution. Sokoto will decentralise Small Claims Courts to each senatorial zone, step up public awareness, and monitor time to resolution against practice directions (targeting 60 days including appeals). The plan aims to dispose of at least 100 SCC cases in 2025, which would raise business confidence and reduce the “risk premium” that many micro and small enterprises currently price into trade credit.
The state’s BERAP page doubles as a disclosure hub, hosting the approved plan and progress reports, procurement/PPP guidelines, judicial practice directions for SCCs, and sectoral fee schedules. This is deliberate: SABER treats publication (not just policy adoption) as an eligibility criterion and a verification anchor. In 2023 and 2024, Sokoto’s Executive Council approved its BERAPs, meeting the requirement to upload the plan by year-end; in 2025 the state refreshed the document with the targets summarised above and continues to publish quarterly implementation reports.
At the national level, SABER’s stated development objective is to improve (1) the efficiency of land administration and (2) the regulatory framework for private investment, among other sub-goals—exactly the areas Sokoto has prioritized. Disbursements are performance-based, which is why the state has been explicit about verifiable indicators (processing times, publication dates, case counts) and why MDAs are being pushed to standardize SLAs.
Faster, cheaper property transactions. Cutting C of O issuance to two months and digitizing 100% of new titles lowers due-diligence costs for banks and investors. Over time, more formal property titles should translate into more secured lending, especially for SMEs.
Sharper broadband economics. Clear RoW rules and a fixed payment timeline de-risk last-mile planning, inviting operators to build and light more fibre. Federal coordination via NBAN multiplies those incentives.
Bankable PPPs, not paper pipelines. By funding early-stage project prep and posting due-process documents online, Sokoto increases the share of projects that can actually reach financial close.
Predictable administrative timelines. 24–48-hour SLAs for permits, clearances, and registrations reduce compliance drag, a competitive signal in a country where time is often the hidden tax on enterprise.
More exporters, smoother interstate trade. If Sokoto standardizes fees and takes exporter onboarding to same-day completion, it will broaden the pipeline for value-added agriculture and light manufacturing firms seeking new markets.
Lower legal risk. SCC decentralization and 60-day resolution targets can change the calculus for suppliers and distributors that currently ration trade credit because they dread protracted litigation.
No reform program is risk-free. The main threats here are execution capacity (can agencies hit the SLAs?), inter-MDA coordination (especially for RoW and tax integration), and sustained funding for PPP preparation and digital system upkeep. Sokoto’s approach—publishing SLAs, anchoring reforms in MDAs with named responsibilities, training staff, and committing to time-bound reports, mitigates those risks by making progress observable and course corrections timely.
The state has also put political capital behind the agenda: the Governor and Executive Council have repeatedly framed ease of doing business as a flagship priority, reinforcing the bureaucratic incentives to deliver.
On land, a further risk is “islands of automation” (digitized titles without end-to-end workflow reform). The SOGIS upgrade and barcode-verifiable certificates address authenticity and verification; pairing that with published fee schedules, digitized archives, and realistic processing targets tackles the full chain—from application to issuance to use in finance.
On broadband, Sokoto does not directly set national wholesale prices or spectrum policy, but what it can do, clarify RoW, compress payment cycles, and publish rules, meaningfully improves investment calculus for operators, as evidenced by national efforts to coordinate state-level reforms through NBAN.
Sokoto’s BERAP is notable not for lofty rhetoric but for its specific, verifiable targets: cut C of O times to 60 days, publish RoW processes and complete payments within a week, deliver 24- to 48-hour service SLAs across key agencies, add 50 new NEPC-certified exporters, dispose of 100 Small Claims cases within the year, and make tax schedules and payments real-time and unified. These are the nuts-and-bolts changes that investors and entrepreneurs notice first.
If the state sustains this tempo, especially on digital land management and broadband-friendly regulation, it will narrow the gap between Sokoto’s latent potential and market perception. In the language of investors: Sokoto is turning policy intent into bankable signals. For citizens, the payoff shows up in shorter queues, clearer fees, and a government that is legible online; for firms, it’s fewer grey zones, faster decisions, and better infrastructure. As BERAP moves from plan to scoreboard, the state’s business climate should feel less like a maze and more like a runway.
