Concerned candidates in the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) recruitment exercise have petitioned President Bola Tinubu, alleging that applicants whose names did not appear on the published list of successful candidates have been invited for documentation and training while those on the official list have been left out.
In a letter addressed to the president, the applicants said people outside the final list of 3,852 successful candidates, particularly in the Superintendent Cadre, were contacted last week for documentation and later received emails inviting them to resume training scheduled to start on October 9, 2026. Those whose names appeared on the published list, they said, have received no such invitations.
The candidates described themselves as newly recruited applicants who had been offered provisional appointments. They said the development has left them confused, disappointed and uncertain about their employment status after they scaled through the various stages of the process.
According to the letter, the recruitment began in December 2024 and involved multiple selection stages before the NCS published the list of 3,852 successful candidates. The applicants understood that those named on the list would proceed to training after completing documentation and medical screening. Instead, they claimed, the process took an unexpected turn.
“The Nigerian Customs Service, which started recruitment in December 2024, made applicants scale through various selection processes and finally published a list of 3,852 successful candidates who were to proceed to training after documentation and medical screening,” the letter stated. “But as we write you this letter, things have surprisingly taken a new twist, as candidates whose names were not on the final list, especially in the Superintendent Cadre, were, since last week, called upon for documentation and subsequently sent emails to resume training slated for October 9, 2026, leaving behind those who had suffered the rigorous stress of selection in the recruitment process.”
The petitioners urged Tinubu to investigate the alleged discrepancies and ensure the final phase of the exercise respects the published list. They said they had attached the list of successful candidates, organised by state, and expressed hope for the president’s intervention before training advanced further.
The letter was copied to the Chief of Staff to the President, the Minister of Finance, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the National Assembly.
The NCS had selected the 3,852 candidates from more than 573,000 applications. The successful applicants comprised 1,275 for the Superintendent Cadre, 367 for the Inspector Cadre and 2,210 for the Customs Assistant Cadre.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that the service deleted a video from its official Facebook page in which Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi congratulated the 3,852 candidates announced as successful in the 2024/2025 exercise on July 27, 2026.
The video was no longer available as of 10:45 a.m. on Friday. In the recording, Adeniyi had described the recruitment as highly competitive and said he could defend the published list. He also apologised for delays in the process and announced that recruitment into the service would henceforth be conducted annually.
Some candidates who appeared on the list said they had already spent money on documentation and medical screening, travelled to Abuja and, in some cases, resigned from previous jobs, yet had not received training invitations.
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