Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The anxiety of the over 1.7 million candidates that sat for the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) may not end any time soon as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it must tighten all loose ends before releasing the results.
The delay in the release of the results has created room for anxiety and suspicion, as well as creating opportunity for fraudsters operating under the guise of Computer Based Test (CBT), centre operators or some acclaimed agents of JAMB, to deceive some uninformed candidates for selfish gains.
JAMB spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin, who spoke to our correspondent in Abuja, yesterday, appreciated the anxiety and concerns of candidates, and requested that they allow JAMB do the necessary things before releasing the results.
Fabian recalled that the result of the 2017 UTME exercise, which was the first examination conducted by Prof Ishaq Oloyede as JAMB Registrar, was released to candidates as they were submitting their questions.
He said that the same thing happened in 2018, but with a hint that JAMB won’t release result instantly in subsequent examinations, because JAMB Registrar had discovered that public outcry over little delay in release of result made it a little bit difficult to do things that would guarantee the credibility of the result.
He insisted that many candidates had in the past escaped with illegitimate act they perpetrated during the UTME exercise, saying that these won’t be allowed to continue.
He insisted that subsequently, the registrar promised that he would take his time to scrutinise the outcome of the exercise, to ensure that tertiary institutions are proud of whatever they get from JAMB.
“We are gatekeeper and the entire security system of a house is compromised, if we refuse to keep the gate.
“We would strictly follow the process so we can get it right. We are less concerned about the time, but how well and credible. Neither policy meeting nor admission will not start this month. So, the delay will not affect any item in our timetable.
“The UTME results are intact and nothing has happened to them. No server has crashed and no other major challenge; 2019 UTME exercise recorded malpractices, but it was not as bad as it used to be.
“Even in previous examinations, there were malpractices, but nobody noticed because of the way we handled it. We are not ashamed to admit that there are issues. But our pride is in getting it right. Once we get it right, it will serve as a message that it’s no longer business as usual.
“Illegality had thrived in the society over the years because people fail to follow issues to logical conclusion. But we have decided to do otherwise, and we need the support of Nigerians to achieve that,” he said.
He assured Nigerians that they would come up with clean and credible result that they would be proud of.
“Tertiary institutions who are our end users would also be proud of it.
“Our target is that candidates that committed any offence should not go unpunished. At same time, we don’t want any innocent candidate to be punished unjustly,” he said.