Oloyede: Father arrested for impersonating son during UTME
CHIGOZIE AMADI
A father has been arrested alongside his son for impersonating the son during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) disclosed on Wednesday.
The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede who said this during an inspection tour of the UTME centres in Kaduna, said the 2024 examination is largely well conducted, except for a few cases of impersonation, which became possible because some people now have multiple National Identity Number (NIN).
He warned that those who cheat in the exams will be arrested either now or much later after the examination, adding that, JAMB has improved its technology to check those engaging in all forms of examination malpractices.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the inspection at Kaduna State University University (KASU) CBT Centre, he said, “For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay. The technology is helping to check that.
“Across the country, most of the problems we have is impersonation. For instance, now, we say we have NIN, we now have cases of people with two NINs 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 NINs.
“We have a case of a father impersonating his son, writing an examination for the son and I wonder, are you not destroying your son’s future? Of course, two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell. This happened definitely not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.
“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 added.
Also, he told those who have missed the exam, for reasons not caused by the Examination body, to forget about it, saying that, JAMB cannot spend tens of millions of the nation’s resources to reorganize a session for few candidates who missed the exams due to their personal recklessness.
Oloyede warned 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.
“Most of those candidates who missed the UTME are students from hostels who were made to register through schools because of the money the schools want to collect from the parents in the name of JAMB, which would now put 30 students in one bus.
“They will now be dropping them in different locations. By the time they get to the last student’s centre, he is already late for the exam. You will now see the principal writing to me. What business do I have with a school?
“Even a religious body wrote to me that, oh, the following 100 candidates, I want them to write their exams on a particular day of the examination. They were even deciding for me the school to post the candidates. How is that possible? I will ask the candidates, why did you submit your registration number to a third party that is writing to me, when the person is not a candidate. And you know as a candidate that you have a right to write to JAMB directly. But, they allow the third party who will lie on their behalf to contact JAMB,” he stated.
On the need for a mega CBT Centre in Lagos, Oloyede who disclosed that 1.94million candidates were sitting for the 2024 UTME, said the Board needs the support of highly populated states like Lagos, to build mega CBT centres like that of Kaduna, which accommodates 4,000 candidates per day.
“If we can have two or three such CBT Centres across the country, most of our challenges would be over. And we have the resources to build it. We only require the state governments to provide the land.
“We require this type of centre in Lagos too, but we have put enough pressure on the authorities in Lagos, but they have not given us the desired response. You can see the relief this centre that, the Kaduna State Government provided land for, is giving us.
“Kaduna government provided us with the land and we expended from the public fund more than N1.4billion to build those four centres you can see, they are sitting 1,100 candidates at a time, which means, in two days, you would have done an exam for 8,000 candidates. But I believe the authorities in Lagos will respond to our call and provide a suitable land. We will build it,” the JAMB boss said.
