By Temi Ohakwe, Abuja
Emerging facts have revealed that malpractices in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations UTME, are now more prevalent in northern Nigeria.
The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board ,Prof Ishaq Oloyede made this known in Abuja while addressing Journalists on the usefulness of utilising data uploaded by candidates during registration to forestal impersonation.
Prof Oloyede disclosed that over 400 candidates currently seeking admissions into institutions across the country were involved in admission fraud, alleging that some tertiary institutions were accomplices in the widespread irregularities.
According to him, the first 64 cases of CBT infractions currently treated by the board were from the north, with some having multiple cases of up to 96 irregularities.
The JAMB boss further noted that compromised tertiary institutions were engaging in change of photographs and biometrics of candidates, contrary to an earlier directive by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, which has allowed for impersonation.
According to Prof Oloyede, ” this year, we have over 400 people that were caught whereby those who wrote the exams were different from those who applied. We are waiting for the institutions to come up and report activities of the fraudsters,”
The registrar vowed that 200 of the candidates would be prosecuted, one from each state of the federation as the board does not have the resources to prosecute all the 400 candidates, adding that prosecuting a candidate would cost the board over N500,000.
Meanwhile, one Buhari Abubakar, who was caught in an attempt to impersonate, and his alleged accomplice in examination malpractice, Muhammad Sanusi, both from Kano state were also paraded before journalists after being arrested by men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC.
Abubakar, a candidate of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in 2020, had paid Sanusi the sum of N25,000 to source for an examination-taker to sit the UTME for him, on the basis of which he secured admission into Bayero University, Kano, BUK, to read Islamic studies.
“However, the arrangement ran into hitches when all the candidate’s details including his identity card carried the passport of the hired examination-impersonator. This scoop was made possible because BUK had complied fully with the ministerial directive that only data supplied by candidates during registration should be used by institutions during the fresher’s registration”
Mr. Abubakar had sought ways he could change the passport of the examination-impersonator his own but was unsuccessful in the course of which he was arrested.
