Customs warns public of fake aptitude test

Fraudsters may have cashed in on the desperation of young Nigerian youths to enrol in the Nigeria Customs.

This followed the announcement of aptitude tests trending on the social media to select candidates for over 3000 vacancies in customs for which 828,333 applications were received.

However, the Customs Authority has declared that such aptitude tests are fake, warning the unsuspecting applicants to be wary of such fraud.

“This is to inform the general public that, the news in circulation about the Recruitment Aptitude Test is fake. The system is presently filtrating to ensure that ONLY those who meet the criteria are shortlisted electronically.

“Once this is done, shortlisted candidates will be contacted through their emails and phone numbers.
Please, note and avoid fraudulent messages from unofficial sources”.

The Nigeria Customs Service had on Monday , announced the closure of it’s recruitment portal ,even as it further disclosed that state capitals across the six geo -political zones would be used to conduct the next phase of the exercise which include interview and examination.

The service had opened its job portal last month to fill vacancies of less than four thousand support staff.

According to Customs National Public Relations Officer, Deputy Comptroller Joseph Attah, shortlisted candidates will be required to participate in the next process at their respective states of origin capital cities.

He disclosed further that interviews and exams will be brought closer to qualified candidates for effective crowd management.

He said “We are going to use the state capitals for the exams and interviews. Shortlisted candidates will be required to participate in the next process at their state of origin capital city.

He said “We are going to use the state capitals for the exams and interviews. Shortlisted candidates will be required to participate in the next process at their state of origin capital city.
While speaking on the number of candidates that applied for the job, Attah, disclosed that a total of 828,333 candidates visited the portal attempting to apply for the positions advertised.

According to him, 524,315 candidates successfully completed the application processes while 156,948 could not conclude the process of application.
He gave a further breakdown that 278,582 persons applied for the Superintendent Cadre, 120,184 for the Inspector of Customs Cadre and 115,987 applied for the Customs Assistant Cadre.

Attah added that the system is in the process of electronically removing persons who applied for positions for which they lacked requisite qualifications.

According to him, persons who applied for positions that had specific qualifications listed but chose to apply even when they didn’t possess the qualifications, will be electronically screened off before shortlisting.

“We don’t want to allow them choose where to write the examinations to avoid the possible rush associated with the choices of cities like Lagos and Abuja.

“We are advising all applicants and interested persons to disregard any other social media adverts on recruitments into the Nigeria Customs Service

“We can only open the portal again in future upon directive or approval by the Federal Government for another recruitment process into the service” He said