More than two months after the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) carried out a recruitment examination for 162,399 shortlisted candidates, out of the initial 828,333 applicants that applied for employment into the service in 2019, the service is yet to release the result of successful applicants.
The delay is already fueling speculations among applicants that the service may have secretly enlisted some anointed candidates into the service.
Speaking to Shipping Position Daily correspondent, some of the applicants who expressed their dissatisfaction hinted that the recruitment examination was a mere jamboree.
One of the candidates who identified himself as Talabi Moshood said the recruitment process had taken longer time, even as he said he has lost interest and trust in the process, he said before the recruitment examination, it took the service over seven months to shortlist the 162,399 who wrote the examination that was conducted by the Joint Admission and Examination Board (JAMB).
“The truth is, I am disappointed in the recruitment exercise, it has taken longer than we expected and now in fact I am beginning to lose interest in the job, because if you calculate the months it took the service before short listing the 162,399 candidates, it was over seven months now another two months are gone, it’s like a wasted one year for a recruitment exercise that shouldn’t take more than two months.
“I am beginning to think the whole process is a scam just to siphon money, perhaps the anointed candidates are already in the service working as we speak” he said.
Another applicant who simply gave his name as Alfred told our correspondent that the whole recruitment process is a scam, while alleging that he knows the family of two senior officers of the Customs who have started working with the service, while the recruitment exercise was going on, he said what the senior officers do at the service was to share the slots among themselves and sell for amounts that could be as much as N2 million. He said it will be a wait in futility for whoever that doesn’t have a connection to get the job.
“I am aware of two senior officers’ son who started working with the service while the recruitment was going on, so whoever thinks he is going to get the job without any connection is just wasting his or her time.
“Because what they do in the service is to share the slots among themselves and some will sell each slot for as much as N2 million, while others may give it to their family members who didn’t even write the examination.”
Oluwatoyin Amoo; another candidate urged the customs to take a clue from JAMB which release results of the examination conducted in less than 48 hours, she said rather than subjecting job seekers to endless wait, it is important the service acts fast.
Yet, another applicant; Langtan Solomon however opined that the service actually carried out the recruitment exercise so as to siphon public funds on an exercise that will not see the light of the day.
You will also recall that a member of the upper chamber, representing Osun East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Francis Fadahunsi had also described the ongoing recruitment into the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) as a monumental fraud.
Fadahunsi, a retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, accused the Comptroller General of the Srvice, Hammed Ali of superintending a lopsided and illicit recruitment exercise.
Fadahunsi raised alarm that the Customs boss was using N1.6 billion for the recruitment of just 3,200 new officers.
The Senator further alleged that the customs boss deliberately outsourced the process of recruitment and training out of greed, despite availability of requisite facility in the agency to carry out the exercise.
Reacting to the various allegations, the National Public Relation Officer of the service; Deputy Comptroller Joseph Attah said that the organization is working on the final list, adding that the service is still waiting to arrive at what to do. He urged the applicants to wait for the service to release the list of successful candidates and not to be overzealous.
“The service is working on it and as soon as the service finished the shortlisting the successful candidates will be informed, so they should wait, if somebody is looking for job, he will think that even one hour is too long”, he said.
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