From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
To Editor
The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Wednesday, ordered the arrest of six opeators of Computer Based Test, CBT centres in Kano State for various offences.
The Registrar directed that the suspects who included a staff of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board be brought to Abuja on Monday and handed over to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission for prosecution.
Prof. Oloyede was in the state for the nspection of the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME at some JAMB approved CBT centres in the state.
Briefing the press at the end of the inspection exercise, he declared that, “We have discovered some sharp practices that are been done…We caught six of them. We have two in Federal College of Education, FCE and four in Mutalib Computer Centre”
“We have told the affected centres to bring them to Abuja by Monday and we will hand them over to the security agents, ICPC for committing crimes”
“Examination malpractices start at the point of registration by substituting the candidate’s fingers, it means that they can use their own thumb to go into the examination hall.
“And if for example, they have any other assignment that day or impersonating for another candidates, the candidate would go there and the story would be that candidates fingers can’t be verified so that we can reschedule the exam for such candidates.
“We learnt from what we did last year and we now put in place the mechanism for discovering at the point of registration what they were doing.
“You heard when some of the persons said they did this in connivance with the candidates. We are going to invite all the candidates we have evidence that they connived in doing it. They have questions to answer.
“What we signed with the centres is that we know some of these things can happen, the obligation they have is to handover the staff. It is when you do not handover the staff to us that you have problem. We ask the centre to produce the staff otherwise they face the consequences.
“We are calling on the candidates to be vigilant. There is no way any candidate should allow any other person to add his own fingers to his own when doing biometric.
“Our appeal is do not allow other people to substitute your finger because implication is they can access your document, change your examination venue, among others.
“Any candidate who allows that means they have connived with them to impersonate and will face the consequence. Therefore, if you are caught, we will cancel your registration and ones that is done you cannot register for your examination that year” Prof. Oloyede said.