From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said on Thursday, that it has found out that many of the challenges being encountered by candidates in the cause of registering for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) are self inflicted.
JAMB said its investigation revealed that many of the candidates are either ignorant of the registration procedures or choose not to diligently follow it, hence they played into the hands of fraudsters who, often take advantage of the ignorance.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who made the disclosure shortly after monitoring the registration exercise in some parts of Abuja, on Thursday, confirmed the registration exercise has been successful so far, except for few problems encountered by some “ignorant” candidates.
He appealed to noncandidates to keep off registration centres, and urged parents to allow their children study the registration instructions and follow it carefully, warning candidates not to divulge their codes to third parties as fraudsters could use them to manipulate their profiles to their own detriment.
“So far so good, we have registered over 500,000 candidates. We are expecting about 1.5 million or thereabout. We still have more than twelve days to go. And if things continue to move smoothly, we plan to register 50 thousand per day. Two days ago, it was over 70,000 per day. We believe today we should be able to register 70,000. Yesterday there was a little glitch on the system.
“I am happy you were able to talk to candidates who had problems. You saw that 99 per cent of the problems are self-inflicted and it was because they play into the hands of fraudsters. You can see the gentleman who said he was just a do-gooder but was doing a wrong thing on candidates’ profile. He will seize the profile and they would go back to check, blackmailed them,” he said.
On the new approach of candidates filling and submitting hardcopy forms before commencing registration, he said the new method was introduced because candidates come and waste a lot of money trying to change or correct names.
“Nevertheless, after filling the form, candidates must confirm that everything is right and the form would be uploaded in the candidate’s handwriting, which explains why at registration points, JAMB has double screens, one facing the candidate and the other facing the official carrying out the registration.”
JAMB boss also assured candidates who had issues with their SIM card that JAMB is working with the telecommunications companies to rectify the challenges, and avoid manipulation by fraudsters