The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says it will fix a new date for candidates who had verification problems during the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Registrar, JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede, who made this known in Abuja, informed that 4,900 candidates had verification challenges in the examination which is a drop from over 70,000 in 2019.
The JAMB boss while admitting that the 4900 cases were still high and questionable, however said the drastic reduction was triggered by a process introduced by the board which allows officials to take a snapshot of any candidate who claims he could not be biometrically verified, and compare with the picture in JAMB’s database.
The Registrar also informed that effective checks have been mounted by the Federal Government against incidents of identity theft in the admission process into the country’s tertiary institutions.
Oloyede, said the government, through the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu issued a directive, mandating JAMB to transfer candidates’ biometric data to their institutions of choice, thus ending fresh capturing of biometrics and pictures of candidates for post-UTME tests.
The JAMB boss said Adamu’s directive has already uncovered 657 cases of candidates, whose photographs could not match the ones recorded in JAMB’s database and were currently angling to change the photographs, adding that the board has referred those who requested for change of photographs to come down to its headquarters, with the intention of bringing perpetrators of fraud to book.
“In previous admission exercises, certain candidates who appear in the institution for registration were different from those who actually sit the examination. This was possible because the institutions were taking fresh pictures and biometrics thereby making it possible for impersonators to have a field day to ply their trade.
“In the last exercise, we insisted, as directed by the Hon. Minister of Education, that all institutions should use the already captured biometrics and pictures by the Board. This made it impossible for the candidates whose examinations were taken on their behalf by professional examination takers to gain admissions,” he said.
According to him, implementation of the directive led to the arrest of a police constable with the Akwa Ibom State Division, one Etim Israel, who was paraded before newsmen on allegation of examination malpractice.
