Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has suspended the ongoing registration exercise for the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 243 centres across the country.
The board’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, in Lagos.
According to him, the suspension of the exercise in the affected centres is to allow the board conduct a third party recruitment examination, scheduled for Jan. 16.
“The reason for the suspension of the exercise in the 243 centres nationwide by the board is that the centres are likely going to be used for third-party recruitment examination and we do not want to create any overcrowding.
“However, the registration exercise will resume again in those centres nationwide, on Jan. 17.
“The board regrets any inconvenience the suspension might have caused the candidates,” he said.
Benjamin added that the list of the affected centres was on the board’s website www.jamb.gov.ng.
It also arrested four agents: Abdulrazak Adiza, Mathew Joe, Obekee Godday, Amodu Friday and Inyang Patrick for allegedly selling UTME ePINs to candidates above the stipulated fee.
The board said that some of the arrested vendors were caught issuing receipts covering the regulated fee but collecting higher which is a clear instance of criminality.
Benjamin, in a statement released in Abuja, said the board has suspended the arrested vendors from further participation in the selling of ePINs for the 2020 UTME and Direct Entry (DE) registration exercise.
He maintained that the cost of 2020 UTME ePINs is N3, 500 and the reading text is N500. He, thus encouraged candidates to careful and avoid people that would exploits them for any reason.