Customs jobs: Controversy trails recruitment process as job seekers allege favouritism

By Steve Agbota

Two years after the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) announced employment opportunities into 3,200 positions, some of the job seekers who applied and wrote the employment examination are still in the dark on the outcome of the recruitment process.
The job seekers alleged that the recruitment exercise has been swept under the carpet and the children of politicians and the rich have been placed on the jobs.
The NCS had, on April 17, 2019, announced recruitment into 3,200 positions within the Service, and after selecting from the 524,315 applications, it invited about 160,000 applicants for a Computer Based Test (CBT) on January 9, 2020. However, the CBT result is still yet to be released more than a year after the exercise.
Lamenting over the delay and lack of communication from the NCS at the weekend, one of the 160,000 job seekers who participated in the CBT exercise in the South west region explained that the silence and lack of communication is becoming deafening.
According to the job seeker who wouldn’t want his name in print, “the NCS should say something on the recruitment process to erase fears that the recruitment exercise has been swept under the carpet.
“There are fears that the recruitment exercise has been swept under the carpet and the children of some highly placed politicians have been selected. I don’t know how true this is but I want to believe it’s just a mere rumour. However, the Customs has not been helpful in dousing this fear. We have not received any communication from them on the recruitment exercise since we wrote the CBT test.
“The silence has not been encouraging. Although, I have been applying for other jobs, but taking my mind off the Customs recruitment exercise is difficult. Any time I call some of my colleagues who also wrote the CBT exams, what I hear is not always encouraging. At times, they ask me if I am still expecting anything from the NCS, that the 3,200 openings have been filled up by the children of the rich and highly placed. That I should just move on and forget about the Customs recruitment exercise because it has been hijacked by politicians.
“I don’t want to believe and still strongly hope that our CBT result will be out. However, the delay and silence have not been encouraging. It’s been two years of an endless wait. At first, we had to wait for almost a year after we applied online for the advertised positions before they called 160,000 applicants to come and write the CBT test. Now, it’s exactly a year since we wrote the CBT test, and nothing has been said either in the papers or via our e-mails.
“Most of us that wrote the CBT exams exchanged phone numbers and have kept in touch just to know if anybody has been called. I am getting tired of calling people to know if they have heard from Customs. I just hope the recruitment exercise has not been hijacked by some politicians.”
When contacted on phone concerning the recruitment exercise CBT results, the National Spokesman of the NCS, Joseph Attah, explained that the result of the CBT test would soon be out in few weeks time. “What I can say for now is that result of the CBT test will soon be out in few weeks time,” he stated.