Uche Cecil Izuora
The Comptroller General of Customs (CGC) Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, has announced that the Nigeria Customs Service is moving to an annual recruitment cycle, ending the practice of recruitment as an occasional event undertaken every several years.
The announcement came as the Service released the final list of successful candidates in its 2024/2025 Recruitment Exercise.
A total of 3,852 candidates were offered places across three cadres: 1,275 in the Superintendent Cadre, 367 in the Inspectorate Cadre and 2,210 in the Customs Assistant Cadre, concluding an exercise that opened in December 2024 and drew 573,680 applications.
Adeniyi, apologised for the length of the exercise, explaining that the sheer volume of applications, combined with an unusually high rate of retirement and turnover among senior officers, extended the timeline. He said every candidate on the final list passed through several layers of scrutiny, including application screening, computer-based examination and verification against the national identity database.
Looking ahead, he said the 2026 Recruitment Exercise will open later this year and is expected to be completed within a single calendar year, from advertisement to final list. He explained that the systems, screening architecture and verification processes built during the 2024/2025 exercise now exist and will not have to be rebuilt, meaning much of the delay experienced this cycle will not recur.
“An annual cycle serves the Service and the applicant equally,” he said. “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.”
The Customs boss noted that the Service is working to ensure continuity at the top of the organisation, but stressed that this depends on the base being replenished regularly — a lesson he said the current exercise made clear.
He encouraged the more than 560,000 unsuccessful applicants to remain engaged with the Service, keep their credentials current and reapply, noting that the next opportunity is no longer years away.
Successful candidates will be contacted through the details supplied in their applications and were urged to rely only on official Customs channels. The Customs boss reiterated that recruitment into the Service is free, warning that anyone soliciting payment for a place on the list is committing a crime and should be reported to the Service and security agencies.