The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has disclosed that a father was arrested alongside his son by the Police for impersonating the latter during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed this while on inspection tour of the UTME centres in Kaduna on Wednesday, however, refrained from disclosing the identities of the father and his child, as well as the location of the reported malpractice.
He stated that the 2024 examinations were largely well conducted, except for few cases of impersonation, which became possible because some persons now possess multiple National Identity Numbers (NINs). He also warned that those who cheat in the exams will be arrested either now or much later after the examinations, saying that JAMB has improved its technology check on those engaging in all forms of examination malpractices.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the inspection at the Kaduna State University University (KASU) CBT Centre, the JAMB Registrar said: “For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay. The technology is helping us to check that.
“Across the country, most of the problem we have is impersonation. For instance now, we say we have NIN, we now have cases of people with two NIN and therefore, that has defeated the purpose of identity verification. We are going to take that up with NIMC, that there are people who have two NIN.
“So, it is largely cases of impersonation, but we are ahead of them; we are just picking them up like chicken now, because the facilities are there for us to see what they are doing and to pick them up. And even those that we have left for research purposes, they will see what will happen after the exams,” he said.
The JAMB Registrar also used the opportunity to inform those that have missed the exams for reasons not caused by the examination body, to forget about it, saying that JAMB cannot spend tens of millions of naira of the nation’s resources to reorganise another session for few candidates who missed the exams due to their personal recklessness.
He noted that UTME is not a school-based examination, as such, JAMB would not be responsible for any failure caused to candidates who registered through their secondary schools, who either deliberately or due to logistics challenges, could not get the candidates to meet their requirements.