If you are saving towards a tokunbo car in Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt, the rules changed under your feet this year. The Federal Government has introduced a “no certification, no entry” regime for every vehicle coming into Nigeria — and one of its clearest targets is the accidented (salvage) car that gets patched up abroad, shipped in, resprayed and sold to an unsuspecting buyer as clean tokunbo.
The policy is called VehCAP, the SON–NADDC Vehicle Conformity Assessment Programme. Here is what it actually says, what it means for tokunbo prices, and — most importantly — what you should now be checking before you hand over money for any foreign-used vehicle.
What is VehCAP?
VehCAP is a joint scheme of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and the National Automotive Design and Development Council. It was announced at a stakeholders’ sensitisation workshop in Abuja on 31 March 2026 by the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Senator John Enoh, who said plainly that it was not a proposal or a pilot but government policy taking immediate effect.
The core rule is simple. Every vehicle — new or foreign-used — and every automotive product must be certified before it is shipped. Certification has to be in place before Form M approval, customs valuation, clearance, registration or licensing. Anything that arrives without it faces refusal of clearance, seizure or sanctions.
NADDC Director-General Joseph Osanipin summed up the logic as a shift from “inspect after arrival” to “verify before entry” — his point being that once a substandard vehicle is already sitting at the port, the economic and human cost of controlling it goes up sharply.
Enforcement is not left to one agency. The Nigeria Customs Service, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Road Safety Corps and the Nigerian Ports Authority have all been pulled into the compliance chain, from Form M and forex all the way to road use.
Why accidented tokunbo is the real target
For years, a big slice of Nigeria’s used-car trade has run on salvage stock — vehicles written off by insurers abroad after a crash or flood, bought cheaply at auction, shipped in, and rebuilt locally. Some of that work is honest and skilled. A lot of it is cosmetic: filler, a respray, a straightened bonnet, and a car whose crumpled structure will never protect anyone again.
The Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria has backed the crackdown. Its national president, Prince Ajibola Adedoyin, confirmed that dealers are working with NADDC on implementation and that inspections are meant to happen at the point of export, so unsafe vehicles never board the ship. He was careful to note that not every accidented vehicle is inherently unsafe, but argued Nigeria should not be treated as a dumping ground for structurally compromised cars.
The road-safety backdrop explains the urgency. Federal Road Safety Corps data shows total crashes rose 9.2 per cent in 2025, with serious and minor incidents both climbing. Regulators see filtering out written-off vehicles before entry as one lever they can actually pull.
The money involved is not small either. Official figures put spending on passenger car imports at ₦4.31 trillion between 2023 and 2025 — imports dipped in 2024 and rebounded in 2025, which tells you how stubborn Nigerian demand for foreign-used cars is.
Will tokunbo prices go up?
This is the question every buyer asks first, and the honest answer is: nobody can promise you a number.
What officials and industry voices have said so far is reassuring on paper. The NADDC Director-General has stated that implementation should come at no cost to vehicle buyers in Nigeria. Thomas Alor, chairman of the PTML chapter of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, made the practical point that shipping an accidented car costs exactly the same as shipping a clean one — the incentive was never cheaper freight, it was the cheaper auction price abroad. Importers surveyed in April 2026 also said stricter checks were unlikely to push prices up.
But use your own judgement here. If salvage stock is genuinely squeezed out of the pipeline, the cheapest tier of tokunbo — the suspiciously affordable listings — will thin out. That is not a price increase on clean cars so much as the disappearance of a category that was cheap because it was damaged. Plan your budget around clean, accident-free stock rather than the bargain end of the market.
Everything else that drives Nigerian vehicle pricing is unchanged and just as volatile: the naira, clearing costs, and duty. If you want the cost side broken down in detail, see our earlier breakdown of tokunbo clearing costs and duty rates in 2026.
Does it affect cars already on the way?
According to AMDON, vehicles already in transit before the policy’s effective date were not caught by it — a deliberate carve-out to avoid stranding importers mid-shipment. Note also that reporting through April 2026 suggested port-level enforcement had not fully switched on at that point, so implementation has been phased rather than instant. Because enforcement status can change from one quarter to the next, confirm the current position with the Nigeria Customs Service or your clearing agent before you commit to an import.
The age limit still applies — and it is worth checking
VehCAP sits on top of Nigeria’s existing rules, it does not replace them. The Minister specifically stressed strict enforcement of existing age limits on imported vehicles.
Here you need to be careful, because sources genuinely disagree. The widely cited official position is a maximum age of 12 years from manufacture, in force since 2022 — which for 2026 would mean model year 2014 or newer. Some import guides, however, report a stricter 10-year standard being applied. That is not a detail to guess at when a container is already on the water. Confirm the age limit that will be applied to your specific vehicle with Customs or a licensed clearing agent before you buy anything abroad.
What Nigerian buyers should actually do now
Whether you are importing yourself or buying from a dealer in Berger, Ikeja or Apapa, the practical checklist has changed:
- Ask for the VehCAP certification, by name. A dealer selling legitimately imported stock from this year onward should be able to speak to it. Vagueness is information.
- Run the VIN history before payment, not after. A vehicle history report from the exporting country is the single cheapest protection against buying a written-off car. Salvage and flood titles show up there.
- Pay a mechanic you chose yourself. Not the dealer’s mechanic. Have them check panel gaps, weld seams, boot floor, radiator support and airbag deployment history — the places a respray cannot hide.
- Check the papers as a set. Bill of lading, customs papers, and vehicle title should agree with each other and with the VIN on the dashboard and door jamb.
- Be suspicious of the outlier price. If one listing is far below every comparable car, the discount is usually the vehicle’s history.
- Budget for insurance from day one. Third-party motor cover is the legal minimum in Nigeria and is regulated, so confirm the current rate with a licensed insurer rather than an agent’s quote.
The other policy coming in 2026: end-of-life vehicles
VehCAP is one half of a wider reform. Nigeria is also rolling out its End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) scheme in 2026, which governs how obsolete and decommissioned vehicles get dismantled and recycled, with licensing of collectors, dismantlers and recycling facilities handled alongside NESREA. Officials have projected it could generate over ₦150 billion annually, and studies cited in support of it suggest more than 85 per cent of an end-of-life vehicle’s components are reusable or recyclable.
For ordinary owners, the practical upshot is a slow formalisation of the spare-parts market. Much of Nigeria’s used-parts trade is informal today; a regulated dismantling chain should, over time, make it easier to know whether the part you are buying came from a legitimately scrapped vehicle.
Key takeaways
- No certification, no entry. Every imported vehicle now needs VehCAP certification before shipment, Form M, valuation, clearance and registration.
- Accidented imports are the main target. The scheme is designed to stop written-off vehicles being rebuilt and resold as clean tokunbo.
- Officials say buyers should not bear the cost, but the cheapest salvage-based listings are the ones most likely to disappear.
- Age limits still apply and reported figures conflict between 10 and 12 years — verify yours with Customs before buying.
- Your best protection is still a VIN history report and an independent mechanic, not the dealer’s assurance.
Vehicle prices, import duties, enforcement timelines and specifications change frequently in Nigeria — always confirm current figures with the dealer, your clearing agent or the official source before buying.
Reporting drawn from statements by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, NADDC, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, the Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria and Federal Road Safety Corps crash data.
