By Godwin Oritse

Age  falsification, forging of acknowledgement card by applicants and other sharp and corrupt practices rocked the recently concluded recruitment exercise into the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) .

Besides the sharp practices by applicants, highly placed Nigerians hijacked the entire process by ensuring that their own candidates are recruited to the revenue collecting agency.

Vanguard gathered that, highly placed Nigerians including serving officers of the service also ensured that their candidates were also favoured in the recruitment exercise.

Customs source disclosed that over 800,000 applications were received for 2,000 vacancies, an indication of the high level of unemployment in the country.

Applicants who spoke to Vanguard on the condition of anonymity said that this was the worst test and interview they have ever attended.

Some of them said that they got the exam center as early as 7 a. m and did not leave there until 3 p. m due to shabby manner the exams and interview were conducted.

The applicants disclosed that from the very beginning the entire exercise were fraught with corruption because the Customs website through which applicants were suppose to apply was opened for only two days.

Customs source further disclosed that most of the applicants failed to read the conditions and instructions before filling the forms on-line.

The source explained that there were different category for different applicants adding that for level 8 and 9 the requirement was a university degree with a good pass while level 7 required a Higher National Diploma (HND) as against Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and National Certificate of Education (NCE) required for levels 5 and 6

For levels , 4 and 3 West African School Certificate (WASC), G. 4 were required to fill these vacancies.

It also gathered that because of the surge, most of the applicants could not access the website and when they did, they did not follow the instructions as degree applicants applied for HND jobs and HND holders applied for jobs meant for degree holders.

Vanguard learnt that because of the desperation of most of the applicants, a lot of fake and forged certificates were presented and the Customs had a hard time sorting out these fake certificates and forged acknowledgement cards.

It will be recalled that the last but one recruitment exercise carried out about four years ago was also fraught with irregularities and corruption as married and pregnant woman were recruited into the Service.