How we managed 1.5m applicants for 5,000 NSCDC jobs – Aregbesola

The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has declared the recently concluded recruitment into the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, as one of the fairest and most transparent in recent times despite the huge number of applicants who applied for the few positions available.

Aregbesola was speaking at the Policy Dialogue on Entrenching Transparency in Public Service Recruitment in Nigeria, organised by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, run by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Relates Offences Comission, ICPC, in Abuja on Tuesday.

“For the NSCDC, about 1.5 million applications were registered on the website. Those who met the requirements on age and height were about 750,000 and were asked to upload their certificates. A total of 217,000 applicants uploaded their certificates of which 113,000 were shortlisted to write the CBT but only 53,116 eventually sat for the test. It is from these that 5,000 were picked among the successful ones.

“In recruiting into the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the board decided to advertise in the media to bring the information to the awareness of as many people as possible. This rules out secret recruitment. We also put away the manual mode of conducting tests to computer based tests that can be done in any location, eliminating the need to have a mass crowd together in one place. We hired a reputable examination body, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the aptitude test.

“In addition, we included the National Identity Number (NIN) to authenticate the identities and biodata of applicants and eliminate fraud and possible impersonation. We also engaged the Federal Character Commission at all stages of the recruitment exercise. All these were done through a dedicated website,” the minister revealed.

The Minister revealed that the recruitment exercise which was long torturous was a novelty that came with a lot of pressure.

“The recruitment process into the NSCDC was long and tortuous, though It is also a novelty. So we expect a lot of pressure. Some of the pressures are understandable. A woman came with her son after getting very high up people to influence his appointment. But we discovered that the son was far, far below the required height of 1.7 metres. Some applicants on wheelchairs also came, demanding for the statutory five per cent allocation for special people. We politely explained to them that the job is paramilitary, requiring strenuous physical exercise for which they are not eligible, given their physical condition.

“One of the lessons we learnt, which we have always known anyway, is that there is no part of this country where we cannot get merit, if we want the best. We got people from all parts of the country who are qualified, including females, as certified by the Federal Character Commission that was part of the process from the beginning to the end,” the Minister noted.

On his part, the ICPC boss, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, noted that the event was the third in its series and was germane in the fight against corruption.

“You will agree with me that the theme for today, Entrenching Transparency in Public Service Recruitment, is very germane in the fight against corruption and more importantly, they contribute towards the attainment of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) one of whose objectives is promoting an improved legal, policy, and regulatory environment for the fight against corruption.

“Indiscriminate recruitment has impacted personnel budget such that government personnel wage bill has continued to rise has continued to rise geometrically almost doubling between 2015 and 2022 from N1.832trn in 2015 to N3.494trn in 2022,” the ICPC chairman noted.