The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has announced that future recruitment exercises will now be conducted annually, marking a departure from the irregular recruitment pattern that has existed for years.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed the new policy during a press briefing at the service headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday while announcing the final list of successful candidates for the 2024/2025 recruitment exercise.
He said the annual recruitment cycle is aimed at creating a predictable manpower planning system that will allow the service to replace retiring officers promptly while providing young Nigerians with regular employment opportunities.
According to Adeniyi, the service has moved away from a system where applicants waited several years before another recruitment exercise was conducted.
He revealed that the 2026 recruitment exercise is expected to commence later this year.
“The Nigeria Customs Service is moving to an annual recruitment cycle. Recruitment will no longer be an occasional event undertaken every several years. It will be a standing, predictable, yearly process,” he said.
“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 Comptroller-General explained that the lengthy 2024/2025 recruitment process resulted largely from the need to establish a comprehensive recruitment system that would support future exercises.
According to him, the service has now developed the necessary screening and verification structures to make subsequent recruitment exercises more efficient.
“The systems, the screening architecture and the verification processes built during this exercise now exist, and they will not have to be built again,” he said.
“The delays of this cycle were in significant part the cost of constructing that machinery. That cost has now been paid.”
Adeniyi noted that the annual recruitment model would improve workforce planning by enabling the service to anticipate vacancies arising from retirements and other exits rather than recruiting only after shortages occur.
“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,” he said.
He added that the new system would also benefit unsuccessful applicants by giving them certainty about when the next recruitment exercise would take place.
“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,” he stated.
Adeniyi also announced the conclusion of the 2024/2025 recruitment exercise, revealing that 3,852 candidates had been offered appointments across the service’s three entry cadres.
According to him, 1,275 candidates were recruited into the Superintendent Cadre, 367 into the Inspectorate Cadre, while 2,210 were employed into the Customs Assistant Cadre.
