No fewer than 400,000 Nigerians have so far applied for the 200 available job slots of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.

The recruitment exercise, which was earlier scheduled for early 2020, was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ICPC spokesperson, Mrs Azuka Ogugua, disclosed in a statement on Thursday that the commission had received approval to complete the process.

She said, “For a recruitment approval for less than 200 officers, the commission received almost 400,000 applications from Nigerians. Subsequent to COVID-19 pandemic, government suspended the process.

“In mid-2021, the commission obtained approval to complete the process. In order to give every applicant a fair chance and at the same time get the best, ICPC decided to apply online tests to prune down the number of applicants, using international best practices.”

Through the service of a consultant, the commission said it had so far conducted a number of online tests, including some repeat tests to accommodate numerous complaints of non-receipt of notification of tests emails, spam of notification emails, complaints of timing-out of test portal, non-submission of fully completed or half completed tests, loss of access to registered email address of applicants, forgotten passwords, and so on.

It asked applicants with further complaints to forward them to [email protected].

The commission explained that at no extra cost, it decided to notify applicants by SMS of the dates of tests and advised that they should check their mails and spam folders for the test email.

Following this step, it noted that only successful applicants – including those with specialised skills that were shortlisted would further be invited for follow-up tests, which may be virtual or physical with effect from September, 2021.

The statement read in part, “The pruning down process will continue until the commission arrives at a manageable number of qualified applicants that may be further processed by one-on-one interviews, certificate verification, health certification, character profiling and other assessments befitting of a law enforcement agency.

“Applicants and the general public are, therefore, advised to bear with the commission in this process. Please, note that the entire process is at no cost to applicants and the general public.”

PUNCH