The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board on Monday said it has uncovered and arrested over 50 ‘Professional Examination Writers’ who specialized in writing examination for candidates for a fee.
The board’s weekly official bulletin, tagged: ‘JAMBULLETIN’, signed by JAMB’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin disclosed this in Lagos State.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that over 1.8 million candidates are expected to sit for the board’s ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination that commenced nationwide on Thursday, April 11.
The board said it uncovered a group described as ‘Professional Examination Writers’ who specialises in writing examination for candidates for a fee.
According to the bulletin, as a result of the various intelligence gathering mechanism, the board was able to uncover and arrest over 50 of such fraudulent persons in centres spread across the country.
It noted that some of the suspects were Master’s Degree holders and undergraduates of tertiary institutions in the country.
According to the bulletin, these professional examination writers connived some Computer Based Centre owners to perpetuate the crime by engaging in multiple registrations whereby the fingerprints of the actual candidates and their impersonators are captured side by side.
“The modus operandi of these UTME syndicates was confirmed when one of the kingpins was apprehended recently.
“On interrogation, he confessed to the multiple registrations of his biometrics alongside other several potential candidates preparing to sit for the examination, in exchange for a huge sum of money.
“This development led to the decision of the board to revalidate all biometrics of candidates that have taken the board’s examination in recent times.
This timely action will enable the board to not only fish out and dismantle this registration cartels and racketeers but also bring them to book along with their collaborators,” it said.
The bulletin added that another startling discovery by the board was the fact that a substantial portion of the UTME application documents, was composed of the bogus registration.
