Joint Admission and Matriculation Board-JAMB says a father has been arrested alongside his son by the Police for impersonating the son during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination UTME.
The Board Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede made this known while speaking with newsmen in Kaduna after the inspection of UTME centre at Kaduna State University.
Professor Oloyede explained that, this year UTME examination is largely well conducted, except for few cases of impersonation such as multiple National Identity Number-NIN among others.
He warned that, those who cheat during the exams would be arrested either now or after the examination.
According to him, JAMB had improved its technology with a view to check those engaging in all forms of examination malpractices.
“For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay. The technology is helping to check that.
Professor Oloyede also disclosed that, most of the problem have they recorded across the country was the issue of impersonation.
“For instance, we have a case of a father impersonating his son, writing examination for the son and I wonder, are you not destroying your son’s future? Of course, two of them are now in custody. I cannot understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell.
“This happened definitely not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.
“We now have cases of people with two NIN and that has defeated the purpose of identity verification. We are going to take that up with NIMC, that there are people who have two NIN”
The JAMB Registrar also used the opportunity to inform those that have missed the exam, for the reasons not caused by the Examination body to forget about it.
According to him, JAMB cannot spend millions of naira of the nation’s resources to reorganize a session for few candidates who missed the exams due to their personal recklessness.
He warned that, UTME is not a school based examination, as such, JAMB would not be responsible for any failure caused to candidates who registered through their secondary schools who either deliberately or due to logistics challenges could make the candidates to meet their requirements.
“Most of those candidates who missed the UTME are students from hostels who were made to register through schools because of the money the schools want to collect from the parents in the name of JAMB, would now put 30 students in one bus. They will now be dropping them in different locations. By the time they get to the last student’s centre, he is already late for the exam. You will now see principal writing to me. What business do I have with a school?
Professor Ishaq Oloyede wonder on how a religious body wrote him direct seeking for about that, one hundred candidates to write their exams on a particular day of the examination.
“They were even deciding for me the school to post the candidates. How is that possible? I will ask the candidates, why did you submit your registration number to a third party that is writing to me, when the person is not a candidate”
Professor Oloyede who said 1.94 million candidates were sitting for the 2024 UTME, said the Board needs support of highly populated states like Lagos, to build mega CBT centres like that of Kaduna, which accommodates 4,000 candidates per day.
“If we can have two or three of such CBT Centres across the country, most of our challenges would be over and we have the resources to build it. We only require the state governments to provide the land.
“We require this type of centre in Lagos too, but we have put enough pressure on the authorities in Lagos, but they have not given us the desired response. You can see the relief this centre that, Kaduna State Government provided land for, is giving us”.
He added that, Kaduna government provided the land while JAMB expended more than 1.4 billion naira to build those four centres, revealing that 1,100 candidates can sit at a time.
AMINU DALHATU
