JAMB withdraws candidate’s result | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
27th July 2021
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced the withdrawal of the result earlier released to one of the candidates that sat this year’s yet-to-be-concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The examination body accused the concerned candidate, Attama Lawrence Ikedichukwu, of engaging the service of an impersonator to sit the examination on his behalf.
A statement issued on Tuesday by JAMB and signed by its spokesman, Fabian Benjamin, said the decision was in line with the power conferred on the examination body to take such decision whenever incontrovertible evidence is presented by investigators against anyone who may be involved in any of its activities.
According to the statement, the discovery of the impersonation was made during the post-examination scrutiny by a group of experts working with JAMB.
The statement reads in part: “Investigations revealed that Mr. Lawrence had hired a professional examination taker to sit the examination on his behalf. However, his luck ran out when the board’s post-examination processes discovered that the candidate had been impersonated in the course of the examination.
“On further scrutiny, other hidden dimensions to the case were also unravelled which the candidate had admitted to in the course of perpetrating the fraudulent act.”
JAMB added that the impersonator had allegedly sat the examination on behalf of Mr Lawrence at the MTN Library centre at the main campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, during the second session of the examination on June 22, 2021.
The examination body, however, failed to give the details of the alleged impersonator and what further punishment awaits the alleged candidate.
JAMB in the past had announced that anyone involved in malpractices during any of its examinations could be barred from sitting such examinations for more than two years.
But apart from its failure to give the details of the impersonator, JAMB did not also state whether the candidate would be prosecuted or not.
Meanwhile, the examination body has also hinted that an unidentified top security official may be exposed soon for allegedly facilitating the issuance of its forged admission letter to an admission seeker.
According to JAMB, preliminary findings had indicted the official but that further investigations were still ongoing to identify other persons who may have been involved in the alleged forgery.
“…Already, a top security officer who had facilitated the forgery of the Board’s admission letter is being investigated for possible culpability and subsequent prosecution,” the statement added.
JAMB further warned that many other candidates may be affected in its aggressive review of the conducts of the examinations, saying the CCTV footages of all the centres that took part in the 2021 UTME are currently being reviewed by experts.
“The Board wishes to restate that no result obtained through fraudulent means would be allowed to stand. It should be noted that the cancellation is in line with the Board’s policy of cancelling any result fraudulently obtained by any candidate even when such had been released. In addition, the perpetrator(s) will be handed over to relevant agencies for prosecution to serve as a deterrent to other would-be infractors.
“The Board wishes to remind candidates and the general public that it would painstakingly scrutinise the entire examination processes with the proviso that the results obtained through fraudulent means would be withheld and after thorough investigation, cancelled as the case may be,” the statement said.