By Oluwakemi Kindness
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it will begin condcting its recruitment exercise annually, with the 2026 recruitment expected to open later this year.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, announced this on Tuesday while releasing the final list of successful candidates in the 2024–2025 recruitment exercise.
Adeniyi said the move would replace the current system of irregular recruitment with a predictable annual process.
“The Nigerian Customs Service is moving to an annual recruitment cycle. Recruitment will no longer be an occasional event undertaken after several years.”
He said the 2026 recruitment would be completed within a single calendar year, from advertisement to the release of the final list.
According to him, the service has developed the systems and screening architecture needed to make future recruitment exercises faster and more efficient.
“The systems, the screening architecture and the verification process built during this exercise now exist and they will not have to be built all over again.”
Adeniyi said the annual recruitment cycle would allow the NCS to plan its workforce based on projected retirements instead of responding to vacancies after they occur.
He said the approach would also give young Nigerians greater certainty about when the next recruitment opportunity would be available.
The Customs chief disclosed that the service plans to seek longer-term approval from relevant government agencies to sustain the annual recruitment programme.
He said the approval could cover several years, allowing the service to determine in advance the number of recruits required each year.
“We might say we need approval for five years, for ten years, and this is the number that we are going to be recruiting every year.”
Adeniyi said the new system would reduce pressure on both the service and applicants while strengthening manpower planning.
The announcement follows the conclusion of the 2024–2025 recruitment exercise, which attracted 573,680 applications for 3,852 positions.
