The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it has cancelled the registrations of 817 candidates in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

Registrar of JAMB, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, who made this known on Tuesday after separate meetings with stakeholders, said the registrations were invalidated over identified infractions bordering on use of strange biometric fingerprints in the registration process.

While saying some registration officers in the affected 178 Computer Based Test (CBT) centres added one of their fingerprints to complete the registration process for the candidates, Oloyede, however, said the 817 students would be given another opportunity to re-register for the exam with the centres bearing the cost.

According to the Jamb Registrar, “For the students who allowed other people to add their fingers to their registration procedure. We found that some of them were only naïve, because you will hear them saying my finger was hot and the man added his own. And you allowed him to add his own? 

“Some of them did it deliberately for impersonation but we can’t identify those who are genuine from those who are not genuine. We will cancel all of them. All the registrations and we will ask them to re-register.

“The centres involved, we have just met with them, and they all confessed, nobody is disputing it, even students that were telling lies, they know we have the technology that won’t allow any lie to be accommodated.

“On their own (CBT owners), they suggested the solution. We will cancel the registrations of those people concerned and we will send a message to them to go back to the very centres where they were registered and the CBT centres will pay to the board the cost of registration of the candidates.”

The JAMB boss revealed that allowing a registration officer or any other person to add his or her finger during capturing of a candidate’s biometric data can bring about impersonation in the exam as well as give such ‘strange’ persons access to change vital details including exam centre.

“By adding his or her finger to your registration, it means he or her can change all your particulars when you are not there. You know your finger is what is used to identify you. The person can change your examination centre like say from Lagos to Ibadan, and on the exam day you won’t be able to write the exam. 

“That is why we put in place a device that will throw up any strange finger that is not yours and that is why we were able to identify them. 

Speaking on the recent suspension of five CBT Centres for selling UTME registration pins above the stipulated price, the JAMB boss said four of the five have been let off the hook.

He however, said the excess payment would be refunded by the affected CBT centres  to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) for necessary action.

“Those who sold our pins to candidates beyond the approved limit, we have decided to lift the ban on four of the five after they have explained, and they have given us an apology and they have explained what happened.

“One didn’t not come so we are not lifting the suspension. The four of them, one of them that came, we are still doing investigation (on the centre)

“As for those who overcharged, all the candidates who overpaid we are compiling the list. The overpayment will be paid by those vendors and those institutions to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. 

Refund & Law

The Jamb Registrar stated that money will be refunded by the Computer Based Centers found guilty of the finger print infraction through the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to the federal government.

“They will pay the money to them and the law will determine what to do because I don’t believe the money should go back to the candidates, because if you can pay N3,000, N5,000, N6,000 above the cost, you do not deserve any sympathy. I believe the money should not go back to them because we told them not to pay but now that they have paid we will recover the money and pay it to the appropriate government agency because if we retain it, they will say JAMB is looking for money, we are not looking for dirty money, we will therefore return the money to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, so as decides by the law, they can even take it to a charity home and give it to those in need,“ Prof. Oloyede said.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC has been described as a veritable Pan-Nigeria institution which must not be lost.

Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo made the assertion on Tuesday while addressing delegates and other dignitaries at the opening of the two day thirteenth quadrennial Delegates’ conference of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, holding in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

According to the Vice President, the NLC is a representative of Nigerians across ethnic, religious and gender lines, which made it imperative for it to uphold it’s fundamental role as a respected pan-Nigerian institution.

He said that the theme of the conference “Building People’s Power, national Unity and the Quest for a New Social Contract”, could not have come at a better time than now when the nation and her people were set for another round of a general election in the country.

Professor Osinbajo challenged the NLC to stand up to its role of mobilising both the Independent National Electoral Commission and Nigerians to deliver an election that would stand the test of time despite the many differences facing the nation today.

“… the Congress and other pan-Nigerian organizations are far more representative of the needs experience of our people than the one dimensional group that tends to define us narrowly as members of ethnic communities or members of faiths or creeds.

“Indeed, those who hold on pathologically to our differences as a show greed for defining our national condition are missing the evolving realities on the ground.

“The fact is that despite the physic-rectory of the Garman lodge and the utterances of those who profit from its armory, Nigerians do not hate each other; everyday, millions of Nigerians, unite by common causes, problems and issues form trenches, form friendships and partner to do businesses …”, said the Vice President of Nigeria.

Professor Osinbajo emphasied that Nigeria’s diversity has never been a problem but rather a strength.

Lingering hardship

Welcoming the guests, out going President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, called on the Nigerian Government to as a matter of urgency to address what he called the lingering hardship brought on Nigerans by the new naira design policy of the government.

He said that many Nigerians could neither buy nor sell for inavailability of new notes and inaccessibility of the old ones, blaming the development on poor implementation of the policy.

“What we are witnessing in Nigeria presently is that you have your money in the bank, yet you cannot access it because your bank cannot give it to you.

“In other climes, when there a new currency design policy,  the old note remains a legal tender side by side the new notes until the last old note enters the bank, but our case is different…”Wabba said.

He said that Nigeria’s leadership must recognise and accept that the nation’s economy is rural in nature saying that this must be taken into consideration while considering any financial policy.

Minister of Labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige in his intervention, said that considering social contracts  called for the acknowledgment that  “we are living in a changing world of work characterised by technological transformation  that have grown amongst other things, new forms of work and trade which hitherto not factored into our traditional mode of employment relationships.

“We now have teleworkers, IT and APP based employment – recently I registered the Amalgamated Union of App-Based Transport Workers of Nigeria (AUATWON) as a Trade Union”.

He said he expects such new trades to continue to emerge saying that change is continuous.

Areas of commendation

While commendating the out going leadership of the NLC under its President, Ayuba Wabba,  Ngige noted three areas of commendation.

“They were courageously and audibly the “voice” of the people during the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Negotiation which gave rise to the National Minimum Wage Act 2019 by which the NMW was reviewed.

“Also, the out flowing Consequential Adjustment for ALL Public Servants was achieved by them. Furthermore, flowing from the NMW negotiations, the cheery news is that the old Act has been upgraded to reflect and conform to the changing world of work to eschew decent work deficit and any form of unfair labour practices; for instance, the NMW review has a 5 – year duration that will be adhered to by stakeholders, workers can now approach the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) for enforcement of their rights to receive the NMW.

“The NLC leadership took Nigeria workers whom they are representing to the Governing Body of the ILO and the outgoing President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba attained the height of his trade union career and became the President of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – the Nigerian workers were really represented adequately….”, Ngige said.

For the first time in the over forty years of the NLC, this is one Delegates’ Conference that all the contestants will be returned unopposed, a feat the outgoing NLC President has described as unprecedented.

Lateefah Ibrahim