The Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board has shortlisted 5,000 successful candidates for employment into the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps out of the 1,477,042 candidates that applied in the 2019 recruitment exercise.

The Secretary of the board, Mrs Aisha Rufai, who disclosed this at the Civil Defence headquarters in Abuja, on Thursday, directed all prospective applicants to check the application portal, http://cdfipb.careers from January 17, 2022.

She, however, noted that the portal wouldn’t open to candidates who were not shortlisted, adding that the documentation exercise would commence from January 31.

“Applicants should check for their names, documentation location, guidelines for documentation exercise and print out their invitation slip without which they will not be allowed to participate in the exercise,” she said.

The NSCDC Commandant-General, Dr Ahmed Audi, stated that the recruitment was specifically for 2019 applicants, adding that the successful candidates would be invited for training after the documentation process.

Audi said a total of 1,477,042 applicants applied in 2019 but the number was reduced to 746,762 when some applicants did not meet up with the specified requirements.

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He said, “A total of 217,000 candidates successfully uploaded their certificates and were shortlisted for the Computer-Based Assessment Test.

Out of 113,105 candidates shortlisted, 53,116 sat for the CBT in December 2020 across the country and 6,500 were shortlisted for further screening,” he said.

According to the CG, the recruitment exercise lingered till 2022 due to the emergence of COVID-19 and the need for proper vetting of the candidates.

“Recruitment is a process and it is not easy to vet over one million people as vetting is very fundamental to the process and takes a longer time,” he said.