JAMB chief warns candidates rewriting UMTE to beware of fraudsters

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has warned candidates who will have to re-write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) not to seek information from fraudsters and unauthorised web operators.

JAMB registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, gave the warning Thursday in an interview.

The board cancelled the results of at least 62,140 candidates in the UTME 2017 as a result of technical deficiencies, extortion, organised examination malpractice and other infractions.

It further ordered the affected candidates to get ready to re-take the examinations on July 1.

The 62,140 cancelled results include of 57,646 candidates in centres-induced malpractice, 3,811 late registration, and 683 candidates who had biometric challenges.

Some of the candidates are stranded due to inability to know their result status.

Warning affected candidates against false information, Mr. Oloyede said, “Candidates should not fall victim to fraudsters, unauthorized web operators and Computer based centers asking them of money to reverse the cancellation of their result or to check one information or the other.”

According to Mr. Oloyede, a professor, affected candidates would be contacted by SMS, email or through their JAMB profile.

He further warned the candidates not to be deceived by fake information.

Over 1.7 million candidates registered for UTME 2017 – more than 1.2 million registered in 2016.

This year’s exam was conducted in 140 examination towns and 642 centres which ran 7,359 sessions.

According to the board, a total of 25 exam centres were involved in centre-induced cheating mostly masterminded by their proprietors.

JAMB had at a meeting on the review of 2017 UTME approved the suspension of 24 Computer-Based Test centres for one year due to technical issues.

The centres would not participate in the 2018 UTME but could be considered for 2019 and above.

Mr. Oloyede said the management meeting had approved the “delisting of forty-eight (48) centres from participating in the board’s examination in future as a result of serious technical deficiencies, extortion, organised examination malpractice and other damaging infractions”.