From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
THE renewed partnership between the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and security operatives particularly the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has begun to yield result with the arrest of five alleged registration fraudsters who had been sabotaging the efforts of JAMB to conduct error free 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The fraudsters were arrested at various locations where they were allegedly defrauding candidates with fake and unapproved registration processes that might backlash on the exam day.
A statement by JAMB spokesman, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, indicated that the fraudsters were arrested in Oyo, Ogun and Maiduguri by officers and men of the NSCDC, and were brought to Abuja where they made startling revelations before the NSCDC Commandant General, Alhaji Abdullahi Gana Muhammadu.
The statement further indicated that some of the registration fraudsters were Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre owners licensed by JAMB to conduct registration exercise for prospective candidates this year.
“More worrisome is the massive investment by E- Kindle CBT centres located in Oyo and Ogun states as well as their co-travelers in Kwara State to manipulate the Airtel router we are using to perpetrate all forms of unwholesome practices.
“They register candidates without proper biometrics which implies that such candidate would have difficulties with verification during examination if not corrected immediately,” he said.
JAMB alleged that the fraudsters enjoyed the support of some strong and powerful godfathers that had sworn to sabotage JAMB and discredit the effort of the Prof. Ishaq Oloyede-led management.
“If not, how would one justify the investment of over N20 million to construct a radio platform just to hack into the JAMB’s registration portal if not to destroy the entire system and put JAMB in bad light?” the statement queried.
Sunday Sun learnt that JAMB had given access code only to accredited CBT centres to register candidates. However, some operators allegedly used the privileged information at their disposal for pecuniary motive.
The statement added: “These registration fraudsters deployed fake biometric capturing mechanisms and super-imposed registration slip just to satisfy the curiosity of innocent candidates that their registration was successful and on the day of examination such candidate’s data would either be edited or not found on the JAMB data base and such candidates won’t be allowed for the exam.”