JAMB blames candidates for hitches in UTME registration

The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has said that most of the challenges encountered by the applicants during registration for the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations were due to their failure to follow simple instructions.

This was disclosed in a statement on Wednesday by the board’s Director of Public Relations, Dr Fabian Benjamin.

The statement was titled, ‘JAMB: Over 80% of registration problems linked to candidates’ fault.’

The JAMB boss was quoted as saying that many of the candidates failed to follow simple instructions on the registration processes put in place by the board, adding that over 80 per cent of the challenges encountered were self-created by the candidates.

Recall that the board had earlier extended the registration timeline due to the complaints by members of the public which varied from issues relating to the National Identification Number.

But the statement quoted Oloyede as saying, “Many of them (candidates) were sending wrong things and commands for NIN, making NIMC unable to verify such numbers.

“The problems are self-created by the candidates, you are sending messages for a profile code and no credit of N50.”

Oloyede added that despite the extension, the number of registrants fell drastically until towards the closing date as only 1.38 million candidates procured the PIN for registration while 1.37 million completed their registration.

But there are still complaints of inability to register due to lateness or non-delivery of NIN verification code, mismatch or wrong names originally submitted to NIMC, among others, prompting JAMB to announce another to two weeks for individuals with genuine challenges to register for the exam.

However, the board has said it will allow candidates with genuine reasons to have an extension of the registration timeframe.

“The exercise is for people to come and defend their claim on the challenges (they have with registration), those who claimed not to have NIN or obtained NIN late,

While saying there could be individuals with genuine cases, the JAMB boss said the exam body would not allow anybody, particular fraudsters to outsmart its watertight system by making fictitious claims, saying such people would be detected and eventually screened out.