The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has disclosed that some individuals attempted to cheat in the ongoing mop-up UTME examination by falsely declaring themselves albinos in a bid to exploit facial recognition vulnerabilities.
He noted that the Board recorded over 1,787 albinos registrations triggering its suspicion that criminal candidates may be up to something bad.
Oloyede revealed JAMB’s observations while monitoring the 2025 mop-up session for candidates who initially missed the examination.
“We have never had even up to 100 albinos any year. But this year you have 1,787 albinos. So, we now found out that one centre registered 450 out of these 1,000 as if all albinos in Africa decided to go to that centre.
“Why are they sourcing a number of albinos? They are not not albinos. It is because the AI that they were using had certain features. That if they do not declare themselves as albino in our form, you will look critically more.
“Because it makes it reddish. The colour. So, when one of those arrested or one of those in custody now gave information that, look, I will tell you. This is the first step towards it.
“So, we now go after all those who claimed to be albino. And we found out that all the albinos are less than 250…..
“You can see the black man arrested (in Benin) claiming to be an albino. How do you become albino? But that is one of their strategies. To declare that they are albino. What they do in blending is that if you want to impersonate him, they will take the picture of two of you. And then blend it. When you look at the picture, it will look like you. It will also look like you. That’s what the AI is doing now. It’s picture blending,” he said.