“No Recruitment Going on Yet”, Nigerian Customs Tells Over 500,000 Job Applicants

By DAPO OLAWUNI

The Nigeria Customs Service has said that it is yet to recruit any single person out of the overwhelming 573,519 applications the service reveived during its 2025 recruitment exercise. 

Recall that the service had recently issued a warning to the public about fraudulent emails, messages, and calls targeting applicants in the ongoing recruitment process.
The service also recently arrested one Okoli Boniface, a suspect, for allegedly impersonating an aide to Oluremi Tinubu, the first lady, and manipulating the recruitment process.

Speaking with DAILY TREND in Abuja on Wednesday, National Public Relations Officer of Customs, Dr Abdullahi Maiwada, an Assistant Comptroller of Customs, allayed public fears, even as he reiterated that the recruitment process into the service shall be transparent and made public.

“We are not going to do what is called silent recruitment. If we have employed one person, definitely the public will know.

“We have done the first stage and we have not promised anybody that this is when we are going to finish the second stage. Yes, there might be some administrative delays or whatever, but it’s for a good.

“We want to get the process right and very soon, as soon as we are done with clearing all the administrative glitches, definitely the next stage of the recruitment process will be announced, and it will be public.
We are surely going to publish on newspapers and we are going to make it public” Dr Maiwada stated

According to him, the Service is defining a criteria process in order to carefully sieve through the overwhelming applications received. According to him, considerations like geographical disposition, federal character shall be considered in the next stage of the exercise.

“There must be a criteria with which you select. You have a slot of less than 4,000 and you have over 500,000 applicants, definitely, you need to sit down and come up with a defined procedure to select, based on looking at even our geographical disposition, looking at federal character, and select those who will move to the next stage of the exercise which includes aptitude tests

“So, after that test, then there’s another stage. So, it’s a stage that all our activities will be public. As for now, we have kept quiet, nothing has happened.

“For now there’s no silent recruitment, no cover-up recruitment, no underground recruitment, whatsoever. So, that process is still intact, as soon as we are ready, we would communicate” he assured