Officials of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Tuesday apprehended Udoh Akpabio, a female candidate writing the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), for alleged examination malpractice.

Akpabio was caught with a phone concealed in her underpants while the examination was going on at Baptist Academy, Karu, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Also caught was Andrew Etziuzala, who was said to be aiding Akpabio in the cheating process.

They were caught with the aid of Close Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV), which sent live transmission of activities going on within the examination halls.

JAMB had listed mobile phone as part of prohibited items to be brought into examination centres by candidates.

This came exactly a year after the examination body announced that it would deploy CCTV cameras to all the examination centres across the country.

Parading the arrested candidates, Patrick Ukpen, FCT Commandant of  NSCDC, said Andrew introduced Akpabio to the chain of cheating during examinations.

He explained that while the examination was going on, Andrew was busy sending her text messages of supposed answers.

“We have in our custody today two suspects who were involved in examination malpractice in the ongoing JAMB UTME,” Ukpen said.

“Their level of involvement was that a lady whose name is Joy Akpabio was with a telephone handset and this is against the rules governing the examination.

“She concealed the telephone set inside her pants and she went in undetected and while the examination was going on, she brought it out.

“But, with the use of modern technology — you know the examination centres have CCTV cameras that are sending live transmission of activities that are taking place in the examination hall — with prompt response of our men and other JAMB officials who were deployed to the centres, we were able to detect what she was doing and she was immediately arrested.

“Upon interrogation, we were also able to arrest her accomplice who is another young man by the name Andrew. He introduced her to the business and was equally involved in sending text messages of supposed answers to the examination she was writing.

“They are in our custody now and we are going to carry out further investigations regarding their involvement and to know if there are other accomplice, if there are more they will equally be traced and arrested and thereafter, they will be prosecuted. They were arrested at Baptist Academy, Karu.”

Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s Head of Information, who confirmed the development, corroborated the NSCDC commandant, saying Andrew was caught texting answers of 1990 JAMB examination to Miss Akpabio.

He said the candidate was spotted from JAMB’s headquarters in Bwari, a suburb in the FCT.

According to the spokesman, the Board had initially listed all items banned from the examination, stressing that all computer-based centres in the country are covered by CCTV cameras.