NIN mandatory for UTME registration, says JAMB

The Registrar of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Professor Ishaq Oloyede, said the board introduced the use of National Identity Number (NIN) for the registration of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to checkmate examination malpractices.

Oloyede who noted that the directive for the use of NIN as a prerequisite for registration was from the Minister of Education, said the motive was also for security reasons.

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The JAMB Registrar spoke in Abuja on Friday during a virtual meeting with owners of Computer Based Test Centres, service providers and other stakeholders to kickstart the 2021 UTME registration.

He said they don’t even require the name of the candidate, they just want the NIN and will then do the needful to pull the data of the candidate and the process will go on from there.

“It’s for security reasons; for us at our small level it helps us to avoid impersonation but there is a bigger picture of insecurity in the country and we know that many of these problems we have are because we have identification problem, we cannot identify every citizen, where he is and what he is doing,” he added.

Oloyede who noted that candidates must make use of accessible SIM cards which have never been used for UTME registration, said talks were ongoing with the minister of Communication and Digital Economy to grant a conditioned waiver to an estimated 20 percent of candidates without a SIM card.

“Not all the candidates are without SIM, 80 percent of the candidates already have their number, we are talking of the 20 percent and if we are fortunate enough to secure the waiver of the minister through the NCC, we will go ahead to make sure there is full compliance to the conditionalities because it is in our interest as a nation that those things that are put in place should be allowed to protect all of us.”

Oloyede also warned that no CBT is allowed to register candidates for NIN, noting that any centre found to engage in such an act would be sanctioned.

While cautioning owners of CBT centres against examination malpractice, the JAMB Registrar said all centres owned by the same owners of a centre caught in the moral act would be suspended.