With its financial autonomous and improved conditions of service for the staff, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has become a hot destination for job seekers in Nigeria.

It was gathered that only two per cent of over 100,000 applicants are successful in a recent recruitment exercise.

Confirming this development in a statement, the agency disclosed that only 1,858 persons were successful in the recent recruitment out of over 105,000 candidates who applied online and offline and partook in a very competitive process which spanned a two year period.

The Head of Corporate Communications of the agency, Val. O. Akeredolu disclosed in a statement that FIRS received applications from Nigerians from all walks of life, including Nigerians outside the country.

The statement further added that: “At all times and with due sense of responsibility, the FIRS Board and Management ensured thatrecruitment was done fully in line with the laws of the land and the policies of the FIRS to achieve the desired level of professionalism to drive quality service delivery.

The FIRS employed all known professional approaches in recruiting staff towards ensuring that the right quality of staff was employed by the Service. All applicants were interviewed prior to acceptance in the FIRS.”

The agency denied allegation that it favoured candidates from powerful stakeholders like ministers and legislators and also punctured insinuation that some staff who had been in the Service were sidelined and preference given to new staff in the recent recruitment exercise and in the recently released 2008 promotion exercise.

The FIRS said that it “will not exclude anyone from the recruitment process for being or not being related to particular persons. The most important thing is that those who were employed were qualified for the positions they were considered for and were successful in the interviews conducted, moderated by external consultants.”