No fewer than 100 examination cheats have so far been
arrested by security operatives across the country during the just-concluded
Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the Joint Admissions and
Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said.
Among the persons arrested was a notorious cheat who had registered about 64 times
in a bid to “ghost-write” for 64 candidates.
In its Weekly Bulletin released in Abuja on Monday by its spokesperson, Dr
Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said the fraudsters were engaged in multiple registration
to facilitate impersonation during the examination.
The board noted that the act was inflating annual registration of the UTME
exercise by up to 30 per cent.
JAMB also said that data available to it showed that the unwholesome practice
was prevalent in virtually all the states of the federation, including Abuja.
The examination body 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. JAMB also said that it had cancelled the results of two
Computer Based (CBT) centres in Abia over what it described as “widespread
irregularities” during the UTME. The board gave the names of the CBT centres as
Heritage and Infinity CBT centre and Okwyzil Computer Institute Comprehensive
School Ugwunabo, Aba, Abia.
It said 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, however, apologised to innocent candidates involved in the relocation for
the inconveniences they may have suffered, reaffirming its commitment to
providing equal opportunity to all candidates to articulate their hopes and
aspirations.
The body said that all the results of the examination sessions conducted by the
board in the two centres from April 11 to 18 were null and void.
