The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has released the final list of successful candidates in its 2024/2025 recruitment exercise, offering 3,852 places out of 573,680 applications — a success rate of 0.67 per cent, or roughly one place for every 148 applicants.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Wale Adeniyi said the intake comprises 1,275 candidates 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.
The Comptroller-General opened with an apology for the length of the process. “This exercise has taken longer than any of us intended,” he said, offering “sincere apologies to every applicant who has waited, and to the parents and guardians who waited with them.”
He attributed the delay to the sheer volume of applications, an unusually high rate of retirement and turnover in the Service’s senior and management cadre, and a determination to complete multiple layers of screening.
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Competition varied sharply by cadre. The Inspectorate Cadre was the most severe, with 128,604 applications for 367 places. The Superintendent Cadre drew 276,995 applications for 1,275 places, while the Customs Assistant Cadre received 168,081 applications for 2,210 places,
All 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory are represented. Each state received an identical 105 places — 35 Superintendent, 10 Inspectorate and 60 Customs Assistant — with the FCT allocated 72. Zonal totals therefore range from 735 in the North West to 525 in the South East, purely as a function of the number of states in each zone.
Women hold 839 places, or 21.8 per cent of the intake, marginally above their 21.2 per cent share of applications. The median age of successful candidates is 26, with close to three-quarters under 30.
In the briefing’s most consequential announcement, the Comptroller-General said Customs is moving to an annual recruitment cycle, with the 2026 exercise opening later this year and intended for completion within a single calendar year.
He warned that recruitment is free: “Anyone who solicits payment on our behalf is a criminal.”
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