Joe Effiong, Uyo
The refusal by the former House Reppresentatives members to pay N1.5 million bribe to an official of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Akwa Ibom State may deprive over 6,000 applicants from taking the examination UMTE, this year.
The former federal legislature, Mr. Dan Akpan, also runs a JAMB registration centre, Springwood Investment Ltd, with No. UTME 2017/05060001, located at Ikot Okpudo, in Nisit Ubium Local Government Area of the state. The lawmaker’s company registers candidates for the Computer Based Test (CBT).
Briefing newsmen, Akpan alleged that after registering more than 4,000 candidates who successfully took the CBT examination in 2016/2017, JAMB had specifically commended his centre for a hitch free exercise.
He said based on that information that his centre was one of the best in the state, more than 6,000 applicants had trooped in to register for the 2017/2018 JAMB CBT UMTE only for the centre to be denied access to JAMB portals due to allocation of a faulty PIN.
He said he had done everything humanly possible to sort out the differences with JAMB Office in Akwa Ibom State in order to reactivate the centre for use by applicants, most of whom are from the rural areas, but to no avail as the state coordinator kept misleading him.
According to him, his centre’s problem started when his router could not access JAMB and they had to report the matter to the state coordinator, Mrs Odigida, who referred them to one Mr Adamu, said to be the director in charge of online registration at the Abuja office.
According to Akpan, “My administrator has been talking to Adamu in Abuja Office, who promised to give us a replaced SIM Card but, two months after, he referred us to the State Coordinator to handle the matter who has continued deceiving us.
“I had personally gone to Abuja office to complain and they had admitted receiving our letter of complaint. As I am talking to you, JAMB has not done anything to rectify the problem, and we are completely frustrated as we could not do registration this year. We believe that, there is somebody sitting on this issue just to ensure that we don’t do registration,” Akpan explained.
He accused a certain JAMB state coordinator of conniving with former administrator of his centre, one Ogunmola (other names withheld) to frustrate the centre alleging that the said Odigida had earlier demanded for the sum of N1.5 Million gratification from him after the 2016/2017 UMTE but that he had refused to give.
But JAMB state co-ordinator, Mrs. Odigida, when eventually contacted on after several trips to the state JAMB offices and several calls on the matter, said the media could write whatever they liked.
“He said I demanded bribe of NI.5million? Ok. If that is what media want to say, let them say. Please let them get to JAMB Registrar on it,” she said.