Customs enlists 3,852 out of 573,680 applicants

By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief & Gabriel Ewepu

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has announced the enlistment of 3, 852 candidates out of the 573, 680 applicants who applied for jobs under its 2024 recruitment exercise.

The Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC) Adewale Adeniyi announced the final result at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

He also announced that going forward, the Service would conduct annual recruitment exercises.

He said: “I am pleased to announce the release of the final list of successful candidates of 2024/2025 Recruitment Exercise of the Nigeria Customs Service. A total of 3,852 candidates have been offered places across the cadres of the entry: 1,275 in the Superintendent Cadre, 367 in the Inspectorate Cadre, and 2,210 in the Customs Assistant Cadre. This is the final list, and it concludes the exercise that opened in December 2024.”

Meanwhile, he said there were factors that made the Service extend the timeline, particularly the extraordinary volume, as the Service received 573,680 applications for 3,852 vacancies.

He added, “The Service also carried over this period and unusually high rate of retirement turnover among its senior and management cadre, which placed real strain on the administrative machinery that runs an exercise of this size.

“Above all, however, the time was taken because the Service was determined that the right candidates should emerge. Every candidate on this list has passed through several distinct layers of scrutiny: application screening, computer-based examination, and verification of credentials against the national identity database.”

The CG said successful candidates will now proceed to physical and medical assessment, and final review at Board level.

According to the Customs boss, “An exercise of this scale, in a country of this size, attracts interest from many quarters. That is neither unexpected nor improper in itself. What I can tell you is that the list I place before you today is one I am prepared to defend on its merits, and the standards the Service set for itself at the beginning of this process are the standards that produced it.”

However, the CG Adeniyi maintained that the over 560,000 Nigerians who applied and whose names were not on the list “were not rejected; you were unlucky in a field of extraordinary competition. Many of you met every requirement the Service set. There were simply not enough places.”

He urged those who could not scale through to remain engaged with the Service, and also apply again, saying, “the next opportunity is not years away.”

He also explained that on geographic distribution in the recruitment exercise, the Customs boss explained that all the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, were represented on the final list.

According to him, the allocation is equal across states by design. Each of the 36 states received an identical number of places in each cadre.

Meanwhile, he said, “Aggregated by geopolitical zone, the North West holds 735 places and the North Central 702, reflecting the seven States in each of those zones together with the Federal Capital Territory.

“The North East, South South, and South West each hold 630 places being six States apiece, and the South East holds 525, being five.”

He also assured that the Service is moving to annual recruitment cycle and not an occasional exercise as it has been, but will be a standing, predictable, and yearly process.

The post Customs enlists 3,852 out of 573,680 applicants appeared first on Vanguard News.