By Johnson Ayo
Authorities of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB has vowed to cancel results of candidates found culpable in examination malpractice in the just concluded 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME.
It posited that its eagle-eye Close Circuit Cameras, CCT, captured all activities during the examination, saying it was screening the results before release. It, however, told those who may get their results not to celebrate in a hurry as it could cancel them “even after release if found that they were gotten in genuine ways. “The board would continue to act decisively with regard to any irregularity discovered even after results are released. However, the board has made it a point of duty to screen all activities at all centres via CCTV recordings before releasing the results to ensure that it does not release the results of compromised examinations, it said in its weekly news bulletin, released Monday, by its Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin.
JAMB also said it cancelled the results of two Computer-Based, CBT, centres in Abia State over what it described as “widespread irregularities” during the conduct of the 2019 UTME. It insisted that “all the results of the examination sessions conducted in the two centres from April 11 to 18, 2019 were null and void.” It gave the names of the CBT centres as Heritage and Infinity CBT centre and Okwyzil Computer Institute Comprehensive School Ugwunabo, Aba, Abia State. According to the examination body, the drastic action was necessitated by the visual evidence obtained from a careful review of the CCTV recordings by a panel of experts engaged by the Board. “However, in order not to unduly punish honest and hardworking candidates who found themselves attached to these two centres, the Board magnanimously relocated all the candidates who had taken or were scheduled to take their examination in the two centres to other centres where they had subsequently taken their examinations,” it said. JAMB apologised to innocent candidates involved in the relocation for inconveniencies they may have suffered and reaffirmed its avowed commitment to providing equal opportunity to all candidates to articulate their hopes and aspirations. JAMB also said no fewer than 100 examination cheats were arrested by security operatives across the country. According to the board, “the fraudsters were engaged in multiple registrations to facilitate impersonation during the examination, a problem it noted, was inflating annual registration of the UTME exercise for up to 30 per cent.” The Board noted that data available to it showed that the unwholesome practice was prevalent in virtually all the states of the federation including Abuja. It disclosed that among the persons arrested was a notorious cheat who had registered about 64 times in a bit to “ghost-write” for 64 candidates. JAMB said the “arrest of the culprits was made possible by the comprehensive and mandatory identity checks conducted on those taking the examination with a view to fishing out professional ghost-writers before the release of the results.”
