THE Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it has withdrawn and invalidated results of four candidates who were found to have been involved in the manipulation of their 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin who disclosed this in a statement Wednesday evening explained that the four candidates were found by the Board’s Intelligence Committee to have been involved in the illicit attempt to fake JAMB result.
He gave the names of the candidates as Adah Eche with Registration Number 97512230IB, Taiwo Abisola Omowumi with Registration Number 97049254GG, Vincent Onyinyechi Prisca with Registration Number 96531098BC and. Sofodun Afolasade Zainab with Registration Number 96634599GA.
While explaining the process that led to the withdrawal and invalidation of the candidates’ results, Fabian said the Board had stated when it announced the results of the 2019 UTME on Saturday, May 11, 2019, that a post-examination discovery of serious infractions may lead to the withdrawal of any released result.
He added that it was also stated that a number of candidates’ results were withheld for further verification and anyone not deeply implicated would have his/her result processed.
“After the verification exercise, a number of the results were released and others were cancelled,” the JAMB spokesperson said.
He explained that there were, however, some that needed further direct interaction and interview to establish clearly whether they were culpable or not.
“Candidates in this category were invited to appear in eight centres across the country (Abuja, Asaba, Gombe, Ibadan, Ilorin, Kaduna, Lagos and Owerri) on Monday, 17 June and they had direct interaction and interview with the Intelligence Committee of the Board to ascertain their culpability or otherwise in some discovered examination infraction,” he said.
Following this exercise, he said 3,736 candidates who were found to be either free of any blame or entitled to the benefit of the doubt, have their results processed for release. “The 3, 736 results are now released,” Fabian said.
He cited an example of how the results of the four candidates were detected and later withdrawn and invalidated.
Fabian said the Board withdrew the results of Adah Eche with registration number 97512230IB, who claimed that his initial score of 290 was reduced to 153.
“Following this claim, Mr. Adah Eche was then invited to the Board’s headquarters where it was eventually proved to him that his (Mr. Adah Eche’s) claim was untrue and he was discovered to have been deeply involved in serious infractions and forgery of examination result,” he explained.
“He eventually confessed to the forgery. Further check on his phone revealed that Mr. Adah Eche was not alone but had been patronised for possible illicit upgrade and faking of result by the following candidates whose names, registration numbers were discovered on Mr. Eche’s phone.”
The JAMB spokesperson insisted that “No effort would be spared in identifying and sanctioning any candidate who attempts to falsify results of JAMB-organised examinations (UTME and others) and whoever collaborates or patronizes such candidates would also face a similar consequence.”
A total of 1,886, 508 candidates registered for the matriculation examination in Nigeria and eight other countries.