Abuja: The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has announced an annual recruitment cycle and released the final list of 3,852 successful candidates for its 2024/2025 recruitment exercise. The Comptroller-General of the NCS, Bashir Adeniyi, made this announcement on Tuesday at the service’s headquarters in Abuja during a news conference.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, Adeniyi detailed that the annual recruitment cycle is aimed at helping the service align its manpower planning with anticipated retirements, moving away from the previous approach of responding to staffing gaps as they arise. He emphasized that the NCS would collaborate with relevant agencies, including the Federal Character Commission, to ensure the budget reflects this plan, preventing any administrative challenges that could impede its implementation.
Adeniyi highlighted, “Recruitment will no longer be an occasional event undertaken every several years. It will be a standing, predictable, yearly process.” He also mentioned that the 2026 Recruitment Exercise would commence later this year, with a clear intention to complete it within a calendar year from advertisement to the final list. The systems, screening architecture, and verification processes developed during this exercise are now established and will be utilized in future cycles.
The annual recruitment cycle allows the service to plan manpower needs based on anticipated retirements, providing unsuccessful applicants certainty about future opportunities. The 2024/2025 exercise received 573,680 applications for 3,852 positions, yielding a success rate of 0.67 per cent, or approximately one successful candidate for every 148 applicants. The selected candidates include 1,275 for the Superintendent Cadre, 367 for the Inspectorate Cadre, and 2,210 for the Customs Assistant Cadre.
Adeniyi stated that all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory were represented in the final list, with each state receiving 105 places distributed among the different cadres, while the FCT received 72 places. The Federal Character principle was fully applied, ensuring no discretionary allocations.
Regarding gender representation, women accounted for 839 successful candidates, representing 21.8 per cent of the intake. Women had constituted 21.2 per cent of total applications. The service is committed to attracting more qualified women into enforcement roles in future recruitment exercises. The median age of successful candidates is 26 years, with nearly three-quarters below 30.
The exercise took longer than planned due to the high volume of applications and the necessity for candidates to undergo various scrutiny stages, including application screening, computer-based exams, and credential verification against the national identity database. Adeniyi explained that the process was further complicated by a high rate of retirement and turnover among senior and management cadres, which strained the administrative machinery.
Successful candidates will proceed to physical and medical assessments, followed by a final review at the Board level. They will be contacted through their provided contact details and are advised to rely only on official channels. Adeniyi cautioned against paying anyone for recruitment, emphasizing that entry into the NCS is free and merit-based. He urged anyone soliciting payment for recruitment to be reported to the service and security agencies.
Adeniyi congratulated the successful candidates, reminding them of the responsibility to uphold the proud tradition and high standards of the NCS.