The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has released the final list of 3,852 successful candidates for its 2024/2025 recruitment exercise, while announcing a transition to an annual recruitment cycle aimed at ensuring timely manpower replenishment.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the Comptroller-General of Customs said the successful candidates comprise 1,275 officers in the Superintendent Cadre, 367 in the Inspectorate Cadre and 2,210 in the Customs Assistant Cadre.
The Comptroller-General apologised to applicants and their families for the delay in concluding the exercise, attributing it to the unprecedented volume of applications and the Service’s determination to ensure a credible and transparent process.
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“This exercise has taken longer than any of us intended. On behalf of the Service, I offer my sincere apologies to every applicant who has waited, and to the parents and guardians who waited with them,” he stated.
According to him, the Service received 573,680 applications for only 3,852 vacancies, with every application subjected to rigorous screening, computer-based examinations, and verification of credentials against the national identity database.
“The time was taken because the Service was determined that the right candidates should emerge,” the Comptroller-General stated, adding that the final list was one he was prepared to defend on its merits.
He noted that the exercise recorded an overall success rate of just 0.67 per cent, translating to approximately one successful applicant for every 148 candidates, making it one of the most competitive recruitment exercises conducted by the Service.
On the geographical spread of successful candidates, the Customs boss said all 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory were represented in strict compliance with the Federal Character principle.
“No state received more than another… Not one place was allocated at the discretion of any officer of this Service. The Federal Character principle has been applied in full,” he disclosed.
The Comptroller-General disclosed that women secured 839 positions, representing 21.8 per cent of the total intake, slightly exceeding their share of applications, while nearly three-quarters of the successful candidates are under the age of 30.
He said the youthful intake would strengthen the Service’s long-term capacity as Customs administration becomes increasingly driven by technology, data analytics and automated risk management.
In what he described as the most significant outcome of the exercise, the Comptroller-General announced that recruitment into the Nigeria Customs Service would henceforth be conducted every year.
“The Nigeria Customs Service is moving to an annual recruitment cycle. Recruitment will no longer be an occasional event undertaken every several years. It will be a standing, predictable, yearly process,” he declared.
He further disclosed that the 2026 recruitment exercise would commence later this year and would be completed within a single calendar year, from advertisement to the publication of the final list.
“An annual cycle serves the Service and the applicant equally… It means that a young Nigerian who is unsuccessful this year knows precisely when the next opportunity arrives, rather than waiting in uncertainty for an announcement that may be years in coming,” he revealed.
The Comptroller-General urged successful candidates to await official communication through the channels provided during their application process and warned members of the public against paying anyone for recruitment into the Service.
“Recruitment into the Nigeria Customs Service is free. No candidate has paid, and no candidate should pay, any person or group for a place on this list,” he warned.
He congratulated the successful applicants and encouraged those who were unsuccessful to prepare for the next recruitment exercise, assuring them that the Service’s doors would reopen later this year under the new annual recruitment framework.
