The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has explained why its pre-exam recruitment portal crashed on Monday, leaving many applicants stranded.

Thousands of Nigerian youths who were shortlisted for the exercise had logged in to participate but were unable to access the portal. Many took to social media platform X to express frustration after hours of unsuccessful attempts, with some questioning the preparedness of the agency.

In a statement shared on its official X page, Customs attributed the glitch to heavy traffic on the portal. According to the agency, the pre-test was only designed to familiarize candidates with the system ahead of the main Computer-Based Test (CBT).

“The service is aware of the current issue with the site; we’re actively experiencing high traffic which may cause temporary inaccessibility. Kindly keep trying while our team works tirelessly to resolve the issue,” the statement read.