Rahma Ahmed
By Ahmed Rahma
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it would spend not less than N100 million for the prosecution of persons involved in impersonation in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
It informed that over 400 candidates currently seeking admissions into institutions across the country were involved in admission fraud, alleging that some tertiary institutions were accomplices in the widespread irregularities.
This was according to the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, on Tuesday, in Abuja, at a press conference held to parade two suspects arrested in Kano for attempting to change a photograph used in UTME registration in Bayero University, Kano.
Speaking on the prosecution of candidates and other individuals involved in impersonation and use of mercenaries, the JAMB boss said the board lacked the resources to ensure all of them are brought to book.
He said, “This year, we have over 400 people that have already been caught, who those that wrote the exam are different from those who are registering (in universities). We have put certain things in place and we are expecting each of the institutions to come forward.
“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.
“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.”
On the amount to be spent on the prosecution, Mr Oloyede said the board will have to spend at least N500,000 on each case.
He said, “To prosecute one case, you will have to spend nothing less than N500,000 because your staff will be going from one place to the other. When they go to court, at times the court will not sit, you will go back as witness, somebody travelling from Kano to Abuja or Abuja to Kano, will be going five times to do that.
“It cost a lot of money. Technology will give us all of them, we will now use federal character by picking across the states and then prosecute because we don’t have the resources to prosecute all of them.”
Speaking further, Mr Oloyede lamented that the north is fast becoming 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 are all from Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno and Sokoto states.
