The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it would spend at least N100 million to prosecute 200 out of the over 400 impersonators in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The board disclosed that there have been proliferation of fraudulent Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in some parts of northern region.
The board also said 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.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, stated this Tuesday during a press conference that was held to parade two suspects arrested in Kano state. The two suspects were caught attempting to change a photograph used in UTME registration in Bayero University, Kano.
Oloyede said the board has the ability to detect any illegal attempt to change candidates’ biometric data and other details used in UTME, and reminded tertiary institutions of the warning of Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, that any school that allows candidates to alter their UTME details in the course of registration, risk being treated as an accomplice to fraud.
On the planned prosecution of candidates and other individuals involved in impersonation and use of mercenaries, the registrar said the board lacks the resources to prosecute all of them.
He said, “This year we have over 400 people that have already been caught; 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.”
Oloyede said that the Board will spend at least N500,000 on each case. This will amount to N100m for the prosecution of 200 persons.
“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 a witness, somebody travelling from Kano to Abuja or Abuja to Kano, will be going five times to do that.
“It costs 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.”
Oloyede noted that the North is becoming the epicentre of UTME fraud in the country. According to JAMB, the top 20 Computer Based Test (CBT) centres caught in the act of trying to change candidates’ details are all from Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno and Sokoto states.
He, however, said some of the owners are not from the northern states, citing a case of three CBT centres notorious for abetting such malpractices in Kano that 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 passports, testified to the capacity of JAMB to detect any such fraud in any institution.
The 27-year old Abubakar, who applied for Islamic Studies at BUK, told newsmen that he paid N21,500 to Sanusi to secure an exam mercenary for him with the promise of paying N4, 500 balance, prompting the latter to engage one Umar Shani for N8, 000 to sit for UTME on his behalf. But the duo ran out of luck when Abubakar’s details in BUK carried the passport of the mercenary.
Abubakar, trying to change the passport to reflect his image, made him prevail on Sanusi to again help him out, a move that landed both of them in a hot soup.
