More than 80 per cent of the 98,232 candidates slated for the nationwide mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) failed to show up for the test conducted on Saturday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has revealed.
JAMB’s Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed the development during a monitoring exercise in Abuja, attributing the low turnout to heightened security measures aimed at curbing impersonation and other forms of examination malpractice.
According to Mr Oloyede, only about 12 per cent of registered candidates appeared for the examination nationwide, a sharp contrast to previous years.
“Every year, we do mop-up, and it is normally for about 4,000 to 5,000 students, who, for illness or other genuine reasons, could not take the exam,” he said. “Mop-up is also conducted for candidates who, after our review, we find out had technical problems in their centres.”
He explained that this year’s unusually large mop-up exercise was necessitated by reports of widespread absenteeism during the main examination, prompting the board to give all affected candidates a second chance while working closely with security agencies to identify malpractice syndicates.
“In the wisdom of the management and our stakeholders, we felt everybody who missed the exam should be given the opportunity,” Mr Oloyede said. “However, given the intelligence we have gathered in conjunction with the DSS and the police, we were really prepared to apprehend those who will be impersonating.”
He noted that some Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres that had been expecting around 250 candidates per session recorded fewer than 20 attendees.
“It is anticipated because, from intelligence gathering, what you have is a bunch of syndicates, particularly those who say they are tutorial centres,” he said. “There are some private school proprietors who have become syndicates of examination malpractices.”
Mr Oloyede added that the Federal Ministry of Education was committed to leading the fight against examination malpractice, aiming to reduce fraudulent practices to the barest minimum.
He also revealed an unusual spike in candidates falsely claiming to be albinos in an apparent attempt to exploit facial recognition systems.
“We have never had even up to 100 albinos any year, but this year, we have 1,787 albinos,” he said.
Mr Oloyede warned that candidates suspected of impersonation who failed to sit for the mop-up examination would not evade justice, stressing that their identities are traceable through names, schools, National Identification Numbers (NINs), and phone numbers.
“The security agencies are capable of picking them. In fact, a number of them have already been picked up,” he said.
He also hinted that parents who fund examination malpractice for their children would soon come under investigation and could face prosecution.
On Direct Entry (DE) admissions, Mr Oloyede disclosed that 14 candidates had already been arrested for presenting forged certificates. He expressed concern over the role some educational institutions play in facilitating such fraud.
“A new one that we discovered yesterday in the ongoing registration was that about 20 to 30 students who did not go through NCE were being awarded NCE certificates in order to be able to register for direct entry,” he said. “One of the students who finished secondary school in 2021 was purportedly said to have been admitted for the NCE programme in 2020.”
Mr Oloyede affirmed that JAMB, in collaboration with security agencies, remains resolute in tackling malpractice and preserving the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary admissions process.
