The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said a total of 1,434,632 candidates have so far registered for its ongoing 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), and direct entry.
The board also said the closing date for the registration remained February 17 and charged prospective candidates not yet registered to take advantage of the remaining days to do so.
JAMB, which disclosed this in its weekly bulletin released to the media by its Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin yesterday, equally warned its licensed Computer-Based Test (CBT), centres against turning away candidates who obtained ePINS elsewhere.
It stated: “The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has sounded a note of warning to its licensed CBT centres which are acting contrary to the terms of their agreement by turning away candidates who had obtained their ePINS elsewhere.
“This warning became necessary following a series of complaints received by the board that some centres are turning away candidates simply because they did not obtain their ePins from such centres.”
“The board is also in possession of credible reports regarding the activities of some of the centres vending ePINS and collecting the fee of the PINS along with the service charge for the registration (N4,700) thereby depriving the candidates the right to choose where to go for registration.
Such candidates are, therefore, forced to register with such centres irrespective of their convenience. Such candidates are then tied down unnecessarily to the centres.
“The most ignoble of the fraudulent practice occurs when some centres dictate what a candidate should use as a password they keep to gain access to candidate’s data in order to perpetrate unwholesome acts.
“Some centres have even constituted themselves into a cartel collecting commission from other centres and some vending agents as protection money.
Such a scenario was enacted in Kwara State, where an innocent agent of a sales outlet was falsely accused of selling ePINS above the stipulated price and was arrested by security agents who had to release him when investigation proved the contrary.
“The board is, therefore, concerned about these ignoble acts which are contrary to the terms of operations.
“All centres are hereby reminded of the nature of their assignment which goes beyond mere profit. The board is, by this publication, requesting all centres to comply with the rules of engagement in order not to attract any sanction.’’
Meanwhile, JAMB has raised an alarm that some candidates were being offered fake admissions through some institutions’ portal with the approved Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), warning institutions engaging in the act to desist.
According to JAMB, such admissions are null and void.
“The attention of the board has been drawn to the purported offer of admissions to candidates through some institutions’ portals.
The board wishes to dissociate itself from such as it is a flagrant abuse of the automated CAPS, which is the only credible avenue for admission into undergraduate programmes of all tertiary institutions in the country.
Institutions which offer admission outside CAPS do so to avoid equitable and just process which CAPS enforces.,” it stated. JAMB recalled it had announced it would stop the condoning of illegitimate admissions from 2017 admission exercise.
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