The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, says over 80% of the 98,232 candidates eligible for Saturday’s nationwide mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) failed to appear.
The board attributed the development to the intensified security measures around the exams and the fear of being caught by the authorities on the part of impersonators and exam cheats.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who monitored the exercise at the Technology CBT Centre in NAF Valley Estate, Abuja, told journalists that turnout was alarmingly low, with only about 12 percent of registered candidates showing up across the country.
Oloyede noted that mop-up exams are typically organized for a few thousand candidates with legitimate reasons such as illness or verified technical issues to miss the main UTME.
“Every year, we do mop-up. And it is normally for about 4,000, 5,000 students. Who for illness, for genuine excuse could not take the exam. Or who after review, we saw had technical problems in their centers. This is normally for about 4,000, 5,000. Every year we do that,” he said.
“In the wisdom of the management and our stakeholders, we felt everybody (who missed the exam) should be given the opportunity. For whatever reason you did not make it but we are now wiser.
“Given the work that we have done in conjunction with the SSS and the police. We have been able to get some intelligence, some information that we could use. To really apprehend those who are impersonating in particular.
“So we now felt that it’s better to keep the door open as wide as possible. At least to apprehend (impersonators). And then you can see that the performance (turnout) throughout the country is far, far below what you would expect. Those who even indicated coming out of the 90,000, there are about 12,000 plus. Who eventually, who indicated that they were coming,” he said.
He added that some CBT centres expecting 250 candidates per session recorded fewer than 20 attendees, which he said was anticipated.
“Because what you have is a bunch of syndicates. Particularly those who say they are tutorial centers. They are some private school proprietors who have become syndicates of examination malpractice,” Oloyede said, adding that with the determination of the Ministry of Education to lead this war, exam malpractice would be reduced to the barest minimum.
The registrar also warned that suspected impersonators who failed to take the exam after alleging exclusion from the main UTME would not escape accountability.
“They registered with their name. They have schools. They have NINs.
“They had their phone number. The security agencies are capable of picking them. And indeed, a number of them are already picked up,” he said.
On the mop-up exam results, he said while they would be ready on Saturday, the board might delay their release till Monday to allow for further scrutiny and removal of suspected fraudulent entries.
“So that may make us delay till Monday, just to be able to see how many of those criminals we have been able to arrest,” he said.
Speaking on Direct Entry (DE) admissions, Oloyede revealed that 14 candidates had already been caught presenting forged certificates this year. He lamented the role of educational institutions in enabling fraud.
“A new one that we discovered yesterday in the ongoing registration was that about 20, 30 students who did not go through NCE were being awarded NCE certificates in order to be able to register for Direct Entry.
“And one of the students who finished secondary school in 2021, was purportedly admitted to NCE in 2020 in order to graduate in 2023. And the reason simply was that, you know, there was the condoness granted by the then Minister of Education from 2017 to 2020. Those who were illegally admitted, because of their large number, were recommended to let us condone (the illegal admission) because these students, we thought they were likely innocent.
“So about 1 million of them. So we wanted to clear them. But when we asked them to bring their certificates for clearance, there was no certificate.