Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has released additional results of 15,490 candidates that participated in 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The results were hitherto withheld by JAMB for alleged involvement in examination malpractice, either directly or through their examination centre.
Related: Why 2019 UTME exercise was successful -JAMB
JAMB spokesman Dr Fabian Benjamin explained in a statement released in Abuja on Monday that the decision followed expert review of the allegations against the candidates, after they were asked to upload certain credentials for scrutiny.
“At the end of the review exercise, the affected candidates were classified into five groups of candidates who have sufficiently proven innocence,” Dr Benjamin said.
“Those with inconclusive evidence of culpability were given the benefit of the doubt due to the guiding principles of JAMB that it is better for criminals to go unpunished than to punish one innocent candidate.
“Another category are those whose uploaded evidence necessitated further interrogation. They were notified and invited to designated centres across Nigeria for further clarification of the evidence against them.
“There were also candidates whose culpability were firmly established, thus necessitating the cancellation of their results. A total of additional 321 results were affected and the candidates have been notified.
“The last group is those who did not upload evidence of their identity vis-a-vis the other impersonators, and there were incontrovertible evidences of their culpability. Their results have also been cancelled.”
Fabian disclosed that four additional Computer Based Test (CBT) centres were found culpable and were also delisted.