JAMB to spend N100m for prosecution of exam impersonators

The Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede said the board will expend not less than N100 million on the prosecution of 200 out of the over 400 persons involved in impersonation in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

Prof. Oloyede, who stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, during a ‘confession session’ of two persons nabbed in Kano for attempting to change a photograph used in UTME registration in Bayero University, Kano, said the Board lacked the resources to ensure all of them were brought to book.

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He said the Board has the ability to detect any illegal attempt to change candidates biometric data and other details used in UTME.

“At the appropriate time we should prosecute at least 200 out of the 400. What we intend to do is to pick like five from each of the states of the federation,” he said.

The JAMB boss also reminded tertiary institutions of the warning of the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, that any school that allows candidates to alter their UTME details in the course of registration risk being treated as accomplice to fraud.

He said: “The institutions should be vigilant and we appeal to those young ones that the game is up. There is nothing they do that will not be detected.

‘North fast becoming epicentre’

Speaking further, Oloyede said “North is fast becoming the epicentre for JAMB exam fraud as the top 20 Computer Based Test (CBT) centres caught in the act of trying to change candidates’ picture and other details were all from Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno and Sokoto states.

This is even as he said “some of the owners are not from the Northern states, three CBT centres notorious for abetting such malpractices in Kano are owned by a woman from a South-South state.”

He said the arrest of Buhari Abubakar, a 2020 JAMB candidate and Mohammed Ajeru Sanusi, a CBT centre operator in Kano, for trying to change the former’s passport, testified to the ability of JAMB to detect any such fraud in any institution.

The 27 years old Abubakar, who applied for Islamic Studies at BUK, told newsmen that he paid N21,500 to Sanusi to secure an ‘exam taker’ (Impersonator)  and this prompted the latter to engage one Umar Sani for N8, 000 to sit for UTME on Abubakar’s behalf.

But the duo ran out of luck when Abubakar details in BUK carried the passport of the impersonator.

Abubakar’s decision to get the passport changed to reflect his image made him prevail on Sanusi to again help him out, a move that landed both of them in trouble.

Both Abubakar and Sanusi, who claimed not to know the implication of their actions, however, pleaded for mercy, with the latter vowing never to get close to anything that has to do with UTME.