By Our correspondent
After several postponements, the central admissions body in Nigeria, the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) has said it would release the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) today barring any unforeseen circumstances.
The confirmation came from the Board’s Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, who told newsmen in Abuja though he did not go into details of how the results would be released.
Oloyode, however, assured that the Board would meet to finalise on the details to be announced to Nigerians. Apparently noting the apprehension which has trailed the result hitherto released almost same day the examination held but which had to be held back for undisclosed reason. He assured that, “We are releasing our results tomorrow; we are having a meeting today to consider what to put out.”
The 2019 UTME was held from April 11 to April 18 with more than 1.8 million registered candidates but the results had since then, not been released thereby causing apprehension among candidates.
There had been reports of malpractices including an allegation that a particular candidate registered more than 60 times to do mercenary examination for different candidates. Also, no fewer than 75 centres were penciled down for punishment over compromising the examination.
In a particular case, a Professor was allegedly caught trying to cheat for his child while some brought underage children to do the examination.
The examination body explained that it would first screen the entire candidates’ results to weed out those who were involved in any form of malpractice during the examination.
The Registrar also paraded an employee of the Board, who allegedly collected N25,000 bribe from a 2018 admission seeker with an assurance to offer admission.
He was said to have however been unable to fulfill his promise and was reported to the Board and the bubble burst.
The registrar assured the Board’s determination to deal decisively with anyone, including its staff, found involved in any form of infraction.
“We are not hiding anything; we are ready to deal with anybody caught and they must face the wrath of the law,” he said.
