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The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has announced the release of the final list of successful candidates for its 2024/2025 recruitment exercise, saying only 3,852 candidates were selected out of 573,680 applications received.

According to the Comptroller General of the Service, Adewale Adeniyi, during a briefing on Tuesday, the list covers the Superintendent, Inspectorate and Customs Assistant cadres, with all 36 states and the FCT represented.

He apologised for the delay and announced that Customs will now conduct recruitment annually, stating that the next exercise will begin later this year.

According to Adeniyi, the process was thorough, fair and free, urging applicants to report anyone demanding payment.

“I am pleased to announce the release of the final list of successful candidates in the 2024/2025 Recruitment Exercise of the Nigeria Customs Service. A total of 3,852 candidates have been offered places across the three cadres of 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.

“I owe you an explanation rather than an excuse. Several factors extended the timeline. The volume alone was extraordinary: the Service received 573,680 applications for 3,852 places. Every one of those applications had to be received, verified and assessed. The Service also carried, over this same period, an unusually high rate of retirement and 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. Where a record did not reconcile, we went back and checked it again. Successful candidates will now proceed to physical and medical assessment, and to a final review at Board level. That is the honest reason this list is issued in August rather than in March.

“I will say one further thing, and I will say it plainly. 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.

“The competition was severe. From 573,680 applications, 3,852 candidates were selected. That is an overall success rate of 0.67 per cent, or roughly one place for every 148 applicants.

“The intensity differed by cadre. The Superintendent Cadre drew 276,995 applications for 1,275 places, a ratio of one in 217. The Inspectorate Cadre was the most competitive of the 3: 128,604 applications for 367 places, or one in 350. The Customs Assistant Cadre received 168,081 applications for 2,210 places, one in 76.”

He encouraged candidates whose names did not make it to the final list not to lose faith, adding that there were not enough openings to employ more applicants, despite many meeting the NCS requirements..

“I want to speak directly to the more than 560,000 Nigerians who applied and whose names are not on this list. You 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. I encourage you to remain engaged with the Service, to keep your credentials current, and to apply again. As I will explain shortly, the next opportunity is not years away.”

He explained that the recruitment exercise reflected the national colouration.

“The Service is a national institution, and this exercise reflects that. All 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory are represented on the final list, without exception.

“The allocation is equal across states by design. Each of the 36 states receives an identical number of places in each cadre: 35 in the Superintendent Cadre, 10 in the Inspectorate Cadre and 60 in the Customs Assistant Cadre, giving 105 places to every state. The Federal Capital Territory receives 72 places in accordance with the applicable formula. No state received more than another.”

Aggregated by geopolitical zone, the North West received 735 slots 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 got 630 places, being six states apiece, and the South East got a total of 525, being five.

The NCS said the variation between zones arose solely from the number of states each contains, adding that not one place was allocated at the discretion of any officer of this Service.

According to Adeniyi, a total of 839 women were employed of the 3,852 places, or 21.8 per cent of the intake.

“I want to place that figure in its proper context. Women made up 21.2 per cent of the applications received.

“Their share of the places offered therefore slightly exceeds their share of the applications; the exercise selected women at a rate marginally above the rate at which they applied.
“The point is sharper still when the two are compared directly.

“A woman who applied to this exercise stood a marginally better chance of selection than a man who applied. From 121,479 applications by women, 839 were selected: one in 144.”

From 452,198 applications by men, 3,011 were selected: one in 150.

“The pattern holds in 2 of the 3 cadres: in the Customs Assistant Cadre the ratio was one in 54 for women against one in 81 for men, and in the Inspectorate Cadre one in 269 against one in 375. Only in the Superintendent Cadre did the ratio favour male applicants, at one in 210 against one in 238.”

The composition of the vacancies themselves is the principal factor in the overall figure. Some 85 per cent of the places in this exercise are in core enforcement and general duty roles, anti-smuggling patrol, border operations, and field examination, which are physically demanding and often carry personal risk.

Adeniyi noted that these roles attracted proportionally fewer applications from women than did the specialist and support functions, where female applications ran several points higher.

“Equal consideration was given throughout, and in the specialist and support streams women are represented in numbers close to their share of that applicant pool.”

He explained that the Service was not content to leave the matter there, adding that the NCS intends to work more deliberately on attracting qualified women into the enforcement stream in future exercises, because a Customs administration that reflects the country it serves is stronger.

The Customs boss noted that this year’s recruitment exercise is of a young intake, with the median age of the successful candidates being 26 years.

While by cadre, the median is 29 years in the Superintendent Cadre, 27 years in the Inspectorate Cadre, and 24 years in the Customs Assistant Cadre.
Close to three-quarters of those selected are under 30.

“This matters for a practical reason. These officers will carry the Service through the next 3 decades of its work, and they are entering at a point when Customs administration worldwide is being reshaped by technology, data and automated risk management. They are of the generation best placed to absorb that change and to build on it”, Adeniyi noted.

According to Adeniyi, the turnover in the senior and management cadre contributed to the length of this exercise.

“Let me address that directly, because it is a matter of institutional health and not of administrative inconvenience.

“The Service has, over the past two years, seen a substantial number of experienced officers reach statutory retirement. That is the ordinary operation of the Public Service Rules, and it is not in itself a cause for concern.

“What matters is how an institution manages it. I am satisfied that the Service has remained stable throughout, that our operational performance has not faltered, and that our revenue and enforcement outcomes have been sustained.

“That stability has been made possible by the consistent support of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, by the guidance of the Nigeria Customs Service Board under the chairmanship of the Honourable Minister of Finance, and by the professionalism of the officers and men of this Service.

“We are working deliberately to ensure continuity at the top of the organisation. But continuity at the top means very little if the base is not replenished.

“That is the lesson this exercise has taught us most forcefully, and it brings me to the most consequential announcement I have to make this afternoon.”

He explained that the NCS is moving to an annual recruitment cycle, adding that the 2026 exercise will open later in the year.
“Recruitment will no longer be an occasional event undertaken every several years. It will be a standing, predictable, yearly process.
“The 2026 Recruitment Exercise will open later this year, and it is my firm intention that it will be completed within a single calendar year, from advertisement to final list.
“The systems, the screening architecture and the verification processes built during this exercise now exist, and they will not have to be built again. The delays of this cycle were in significant part the cost of constructing that machinery. That cost has now been paid.
“An annual cycle serves the Service and the applicant equally. It allows us to plan our manpower against known retirements rather than in reaction to them.
“And 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.

NCS Comptroller General, Adewale Adeniyi, hands over some assorted arms and 2, 298 live cartridges to NCCSALW Director General, Johnson Kokumo, in Lagos on February 13, 2025.

“They should watch the official channels of the Service and no others. I repeat the warning the Service has issued throughout this exercise: recruitment into the Nigeria Customs Service is free.”
He warned candidates against engaging in fraudulent recruitment exercise.

“No candidate has paid, and no candidate should pay, any person or group for a place on this list. Anyone who solicits payment on our behalf is a criminal, and should be reported to the Service and to the security agencies.