573,519 Chase 3,927 Customs Positions

By Suleiman Anyalewechi

Over half a million applicants are currently  chasing less than four thousand job opportunities at the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS.

The Source reports that the Federal Government ,late 2024 gave the Service the nod to recruit  3,927  personnel within the first quarter of 2025.

Following the approval which was conveyed through the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, the NCS,  three weeks ago,  opened its recruitment portal for interested persons.

But with the closure of the recruitment portal last week, the Service said it received 573 ,519 applications ,cutting across the various ranks listed for the exercise.

Speaking with Daily Trend ,a Maritime publication ,on Tuesday January 7, 2025, the spokesperson for the NCS, Abdullahi Maiwada, ACS, informed that applicants also were drawn from University graduates, Higher National Diploma HND ,ND  NCE  holders ,and Secondary school leavers

“I want to breakdown the number of people that applied. We have two categories of officers. We have the support staff that are professionals and we have the general duty.

“For the general duty, we have three categories of ranks. For the general duty under the superintendent cadre, we have 249,218 candidates that applied.

“Under the superintendent cadre Support staff, we have 27 ,722 applicants, with HNDs and University degrees.

“For the Inspector cadre ,ie those who applied with National Certificate for Education NCE and or National Diploma ND, we have 115 ,634 applying under general duty ,while 12 ,952 applicants fall under support staff .

“As for the Customs Assistants, these are those who are supposed  to come in with a minimum of Secondary school certificate .

“There are two categories here – those who have basic five credit results including Mathematics and English Language and those without Maths and English .

“For the general duty, we have 153,000 applicants ,while 14,400 applied under Support staff category” Maiwada stated .

The Source further reports that the unprecedented high number of applicants came even amidst several complaints about the difficulties experienced by some people in accessing the recruitment portal.