The Nigeria Customs Service has announced that it will begin conducting recruitment exercises every year, ending the long-standing practice of irregular hiring.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed this on Tuesday during a press briefing at the service headquarters in Abuja while unveiling the final list of successful candidates for the 2024/2025 recruitment exercise.
Adeniyi said the new approach is designed to ensure a more predictable recruitment process, improve workforce planning and provide young Nigerians with regular opportunities to join the service.
“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.
He announced that the 2026 recruitment exercise would commence later this year and expressed confidence that the entire process would be concluded within the same calendar year.
“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 the release of the final list,” Adeniyi stated.
According to him, the prolonged duration of the 2024/2025 recruitment exercise was necessary because the service had to establish a comprehensive recruitment framework that would support future annual exercises.
He explained that the Customs Service has now developed the screening architecture, verification procedures and other systems required to make subsequent recruitment exercises faster and more efficient.
“The systems, the screening architecture and the verification processes built during this exercise now exist and will not have to be created again. The delays experienced this cycle were largely the price of putting that structure in place, and that investment has now been made,” he said.
Adeniyi noted that annual recruitment would allow the service to fill vacancies created by retirements and other exits in a timely manner rather than waiting until manpower shortages arise.
He added that the new arrangement would also benefit applicants by providing certainty about when recruitment opportunities would become available.
“An annual cycle serves both the Service and applicants. It allows us to plan our manpower against known retirements instead of reacting to shortages.
It also means that unsuccessful applicants know exactly when the next opportunity will come rather than waiting for years in uncertainty,” he added.
The Customs boss also revealed that 3,852 candidates were successful in the 2024/2025 recruitment exercise.
He said 1,275 candidates were recruited into the Superintendent Cadre, 367 into the Inspectorate Cadre, while 2,210 secured appointments into the Customs Assistant Cadre.
