The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said the rate of fraud perpetuated in admissions processing in Nigerian institutions was alarming.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, decried the situation during a news briefing at the board’s Headquarters on Tuesday in Abuja.

Oloyede disclosed that over 400 candidates currently seeking admissions into institutions across the country were involved in admissions fraud.

He added that unfortunately, some tertiary institutions were accomplices in the irregularities, condemning the influx of fraudulent Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in parts of the country. According to him, there were lots of CBT infractions currently being treated by the board with some having multiple cases of up to 96 irregularities. He also said that compromised tertiary institutions were engaging in change of photographs and biometrics of candidates, which allows impersonation, contrary to an earlier directive by the Federal Government. Oloyede warned that any public institution that violates the directive would be treated as an accomplice, named and shamed, while private institutions could have their licenses withdrawn.

He said: “This year, we have over 400 people that were caught, where those who wrote the exams were different from those who applied.

“We are waiting for the institutions to report activities of the fraudsters to us,”

He added: “200 of the candidates would be prosecuted, one from each state of the federation because the board does not have the resources to prosecute all the 400 candidates

“This is because prosecuting a candidate would cost the board over N500,000.”

He urged institutions to look inwards and monitor the activities of their ICT staff, while also warning candidates to desist from fraudulent changes on JAMB portal as the board monitors all activities on it. In a similar development, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) paraded two suspects of the fraudulent act before members of the board at the meeting. One of the suspects was caught attempting to impersonate while the other was arrested for examination malpractice. One of the candidates, who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2020, was said to have paid the sum of N25,000 to source for an “examination-taker” to sit for the UTME for him.

The registrar explained that the arrangement ran into hitches when all the candidate’s details including the identity card, carried the passport of the hired “examination-taker”. “This scoop was made possible because Bayero University Kano( BUK) had complied fully with the ministerial directive that only data supplied by candidates during registration should be used by institutions during fresh registration, “the suspect had sought ways he could change the passport of the examination-taker to his own but was unsuccessful in the course of which he was arrested. Another person, who was also arrested had promised to change the passport for the “examination-taker” to that of Abubakar, but also failed. “If not for the implementation of the Federal Government’s policy, this particular candidate would have brought in a fresh passport and got himself properly registered into the university without anyone being aware.

“This scenario lends credence to the fact that there is no room for impersonation.

“Whatever information a candidate provides at the point of UTME/DE registration would be what will appear on his or her identity card in the school of their choice and their certificates after graduation, among others. “ With this fateful outcome, it is important that institutions that are yet to fully comply with the ministerial directive to stop change of passports and others must do so with immediate effect. “If not, they would be seen as aiding and abetting impersonation,” Oloyede said. (NAN)

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