The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced the cancellation of 817 registrations for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations and Direct Entry (UTME).
According to the Punch newspaper, the decision was made after the examination discovered some discrepancies in the identities of the candidates.
In a statement released to the press on Wednesday, February 8, JAMB registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede revealed that some registration officers in the affected 178 Computer-Based Test centers added their fingerprints to complete the registration process for the candidates.
Prof Oloyede, on the other hand, revealed that the affected candidates will be given another chance to register at their own expense.
Prof Oloyede said:
“For the students who allowed other people to add their fingers to their registration procedure, we found that some of them were only naive, because you will hear them saying my finger was hot, and the man added his own. And you allowed him to add his own?
“Some of them did it deliberately for impersonation, but we can’t identify those who are genuine from those who are not genuine. We will cancel all of them, all the registrations, and we will ask them to re-register.”
While reacting to the recent controversy involving some CBT centres who sold the UTM registering pin at exorbitant rate as against the stipulated price by the exam body, Prof Oloyded revealed that four out of the five culpable centres have been reinstated back to the fold.
While giving his reasons, he said:
“Those who sold our pins to candidates beyond the approved limit, we have decided to lift the ban on four of the five after they have explained, and they have given us an apology and they have explained what happened.
“One did not come so we are not lifting the suspension. The four of them, one of them that came, we are still doing investigation (on the centre).
“As for those who overcharged, all the candidates who overpaid we are compiling the list. The overpayment will be paid by those vendors and those institutions to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.”