The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has concluded the final phase of its fresh personnel recruitment, which began in December 2024.
The exercise covered the three cadres of entry-superintendent, Inspectorate and Assistant.
Only 3,852 out of the 573,680 applicants were successful. Out of the successful applicants, 839 are females, representing 21percent of the total, and the rest are males.
A further breakdown of the 3,852 that qualified for recruitment showed the Northwest having the highest number of 753. The Northcentral had 702 on the success list, followed by Northeast, Southwest and Southsouth with 630. The Southeast has 525.
One thousand, two hundred and seventy of the success list were hired as Superintendents, 367 as Inspectors, and 2,210 Customs Assistants.
NCS Comptroller – General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi gave the details during a news conference on the 2024/2025 recruitment drive in Abuja yesterday.
He said that the successful candidates are expected to undergo ”physical and medical assessment and a final review at board level.’
Adeniyi described the exercise as extraordinary, saying the verification and assessment of all the 573,680 applicants put heavy pressure on the NCS management.
He said: ‘The volume alone was extraordinary. The Service received 573,680 applications for 3,852 places. That is an overall success rate of 0.67 per cent, or roughly one place for every 148 applicants.
”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.
‘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.’
To those who were unsuccessful, he said: ‘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.’
Adeniyi, who admitted that the exercise took longer than was intended, apologised to every applicant and parents/ and guardians for the delay.
‘That wait was real, and I do not diminish it,’ he said, explaining that many factors caused it.
Defending the integrity of the exercise, he said: ‘That is neither unexpected nor improper in itself. What I can tell you is that the list I place before you today(yesterday) 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.’
Adeniyi also explained that being a national institution, the NCS ensured that all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory(FCT) were represented on the final list.
His words: ‘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 received 72 places in accordance with the applicable formula. No state received more than another.
‘Aggregated by geopolitical zone, the Northwest holds 735 places and the Northcentral 702, reflecting the seven states in each of those zones together with the FCT.
‘ The Northeast, Southsouth and Southwest each hold 630 places, being six states apiece, and the Southeast holds 525, being five.
‘ The variation between zones therefore arises solely from the number of states each contains. Not one place was allocated at the discretion of any officer of this Service. The Federal Character principle has been applied in full.
‘Women hold 839 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 two of the three cadres: in the Customs Assistant Cadre the ratio was one in 54 for women against one in 81 for men. 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 238.15.
‘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.
‘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.
‘The Service is not content to leave the matter there. We intend 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.
‘Age: This is a young intake. The median age of the successful candidates is 26 years. 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 30.18. 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.’