A total of 3,852 candidates have been offered places across the three cadres of entry: 1,275 in the Superintendent Cadre, 367 in the Inspectorate Cadre and 2,210 in the Customs Assistant Cadre. This is the final list, and it concludes the exercise that opened in December 2024.
The Comptroller General gave a speech saying” On behalf of the Service, I offer my sincere apologies to every applicant who has waited, and to the parents and guardians who waited with them.
Several factors extended the timeline. The volume alone was extraordinary: the Service received 573,680 applications for 3,852 places. Every one of those applications had to be received, verified and assessed. The Service also carried, over this same period, an unusually high rate of retirement and turnover among its senior and management cadre, which placed real strain on the administrative machinery that runs an exercise of this size.”
Above all, Every candidate on this list has passed through several distinct layers of scrutiny: application screening, computer-based examination, and verification of credentials against the national identity database.Successful candidates will now proceed to physical and medical assessment, and to a final review at Board level.
From 573,680 applications, 3,852 candidates were selected.The Superintendent Cadre drew 276,995 applications for 1,275 places, a ratio of one in 217. The Inspectorate Cadre was the most competitive of the 3: 128,604 applications for 367 places, or one in 350.
The Customs Assistant Cadre received 168,081 applications for 2,210 places, one in 76.
He additionally speaks directly to the more than 560,000 Nigerians who applied and whose names are not on this list, saying none of them were rejected; they were unlucky in a field of extraordinary competition. It was also noted that each of the 36 states received an identical number of places in each cadre.
The service intends to work more deliberately on attracting qualified women into the enforcement stream in future exercises, because a Customs administration that reflects the country it serves is a stronger administration.
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.
The 2026 Recruitment Exercise will open later this year, and it is with an intention that it will be completed within a single calendar year, from advertisement to final list.
Successful candidates will be contacted directly through the contact details supplied in their applications.
To the 3,852 men and women whose names appear on this list: congratulations.You are joining a Service with a proud tradition and a demanding standard, and you will be held to that standard from your first day.