From Fred Itua, Abuja and Paul Orude Bauchi
Senate has passed the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Amendment Bill which means results from the examination will now be valid for three years, as against the current one year arrangement.
Senator Jibrin Barau, who heads the Tertiary Education Committee, explained that the financial hardship parents experience yearly in sponsoring the candidates for JAMB necessitated the amendment of the existing Bill.
Thereafter, Senate directed JAMB management to begin extension of results validity results to three years.
Senate also ordered the JAMB to immediately stop its policy of re-assigning candidates to schools they never applied to and added that such policy was contrary to the Act which established it.
Senate also commended the Air Force for neutralising activities of dreaded Boko Haram in the North-East.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Air force, Senator Duro Faseyi, said this when he visited the newly-established 89 Composite Group of the Nigeria Air force, Bauchi, yesterday, on oversight duty.
Faseyi noted with satisfaction that relative peace has been restored in the north-east, attributing much of the success to the superior aerial combat of the air force.
Senator Faseyi who was in company with his Vice, Senator Ali Wakili (APC Bauchi South), Deputy Leader of the Senate, Senator Bala Ibn Na’ Allah, (APC Kebbi North) and Senator Jonah Jang (PDP Plateau North), said 80 per cent of the war against the insurgency was waged by the air force.
He said the air force operations was significant in smoking out insurgents from their base in Sambisa forest in Borno State and the Balmo and Bura forests in Bauchi State used as hideouts.