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Candidates continue to experience difficulties with registration process
MINISTER OF EDUCATION, ALHAJI ADAMU ADAMU
By Ada Anioji
Contrary to claims by the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board, JAMB, that it has presently registered as much as 600,00 candidates and that the body had duly put in place all the required logistics to ensure a hitch-free process, complaints continue to trail the process.
The Difference checks in several locations within Ogun State for example confirmed that many would-be-candidates were indeed having a very tough time in getting their registration done.
Principally, the challenge is with getting the very critical ‘JAMB PIN’ without which the entire process cannot be successfully completed.
Cashing in on this, several middlemen have since stepped into the process, leading to a rise in the costs being incurred by would-be candidates.
It will be recalled that JAMB had on Monday restated that the process was going on smoothly and that it had already registered 600,000 candidates for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), even as it warned there will be no extension of time for the registration.
Dr. Fabian Benjamin, Head of Public Relations of JAMB, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the stipulated deadline for the registration stands and would not be shifted.
He said the Board was satisfied with measures that it had put in place to ensure that the regulated platform could help candidates get registered before the end of the month as well as prevent any possible irregularities in the registration process.
According to him, it is wrong for any one to insinuate that the body had not put in place enough centres to register candidates for the UTME.
“We have already registered 600,000 candidates since sales of form began March 20, how can there be inadequate centres or lack of manpower, when we have more than 400 centres.
“There is no such delay as alleged by some candidates, the issue here is that plenty people are registering for the UTME at the same time.
“The internet is working, if it is not working how then we arrived at the total of 600, 000 that have so far been duly registered.
“Large numbers of applicants seeking to register for UTME go to the banks allocated for the exercise that is why there seem to be some form of delays and irregularities.
“Before now we used three banks and now there are 15 banks because the period is short, but we are not going to extend the registration period.”
He said that the initiative for use of the platform to register candidates for the UTME was in line with the Board’s policy to ensure standards operation.
According to him, 25 persons have been arrested and handed over to the Police for illegal registration and sale of the 2017 UTME materials to candidates across the country.
He disclosed that the suspects had been arrested by a combined team of Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU); members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Nigeria Police Force.
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