…nabs Police officer for examination malpractice
Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), said on Friday that the upgrade of its identification system has begun to yield the desired results, with the significant reduction in identity theft cases in 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB said that review of its 2020 UTME activities revealed that incidences of impersonation and other forms of identity theft dropped from 74,000 in 2019 to 4,900 in 2020 UTME.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed the information to journalists in Abuja, said the desire of JAMB is to continue to record a drop in such cases, hence the need for continuous upgrade of its identity systems.
Oloyede said: “The 4, 900 cases were still high and questionable. Nevertheless, the drastic reduction was triggered by a new process that allow officials take a snapshot of candidates who claim that her or she could not be biometrically verified, and compare it with the picture in JAMB’s database.
“Last year, one of the steps we took was that if a candidate could not be verified biometrically, the candidate is asked to take a new picture and fresh biometrics. The aim was to match the new data with what was obtained during the registration exercise to establish that same person did the original registration.
“The measure revealed attempts by some of the candidates to impersonate, as many of them had registered while a different set would surface to sit for the examination. However, the pictures and biometrics captured during registration revealed different person.”
Meanwhile, a Police constable with the Akwa Ibom State Division, Etim Israel, was recently arrested for alleged examination malpractices.
JAMB said that Etim had hired a school teacher named Emmanuel for N30,000 to write the 2020 UTME for him while he was away on official duties.
“Luck, however, ran out on him when his photograph could not tally with Emmanuel’s and was forced to visit the JAMB headquarters in Abuja for rectification.
According to him, he scored over 200 points in UTME and wanted to study fishery at the Akwa Ibom state University, Ikot Akpaden Mpat Enin, but the new measures detected the impersonation and denied him the opportunity.
Etim, however, said he has learned his lessons and was willing to cooperate with the police to carry out a thorough investigation leading to the arrest of Emmanuel who had fled from his home since after sighting him with police on their way to arrest him.