By Felix Khanoba
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has delisted over 22 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres for allegedly defrauding 11,823 of its candidates to the tune of N59 million.
Registrar/Chief Executive of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who made this known during a virtual meeting with representatives of the affected centres on Thursday, said they carried out the fraud by charging candidates more than stipulated amount for effecting correction on profile as well as bypassing One-Time Password (OTP) required of candidates to initiate such changes.
While saying 22 centres from nine states were indicted for the infractions, Prof. Oloyede said any centre that shared the same ownership with the affected ones also stood suspended from all JAMB activities.
He said : “The purpose of calling this meeting is to interact with 22 of you (institutions) that have grossly violated the prescription of the Board, particularly during Covid-19, and those who have done things not expected to do, thereby endangering the lives of candidates that they were supposed to protect.
“Not only that, we have discovered that the 22 of you have also defrauded candidates by collecting from them more than you are expected to collect and doing certain things that would bypass the normal process and procedure.
“We have invited you to this meeting to hear you out and also let the public know how some of you are engaging in criminal activities in the process of registering candidates. There are some of you that can even be classified as certified fraudsters.”
While saying the affected CBT centres owners would also be prosecuted, Prof. Oloyede said the Board has reversed the changes done illegally by affected candidates but the money paid to JAMB to effect the changes remain intact on their profiles.
He advised such candidates to change their passwords to avoid further damage following exposure of the secret code to operators of the now blacklisted CBT centres.
Speaking further, the JAMB boss lamented that all owners of the affected CBT centres are from one section of the country, saying such behaviour of fleecing both innocent and not innocent candidates of several amounts of money under the guise of effecting changes in registration details portends danger for the country.
“Some of you were collecting N3,000, N5,000 from candidates (for an amount that supposed to be N200 as service charge for the centre). What you have collected is over N59 Million”, adding that JAMB has concrete proof of the infractions as the Board made undercover payments to the centres in order to actually detect the fraud that was being perpetrated by them.
A representative of Duntro CBT centre, David Ugochukwu, blamed the illegal act on his technical staff, saying that they have been sacked from the organisation.
Ugochukwu, however, claimed he had earlier written to JAMB to innaudate it of the identified breaches in the registration application that may allow the bypass of OTP in the correction of candidates data in their absence with the submission of their passwords.
Other CBT representatives who spoke at the meeting , apologised and admitted to the illegal activities but blamed the problem on technical staff.
The affected CBT centres are Bright Stars, Aba, Abia State, 68 candidates; Flourish Computer Centre, Akwa Ibom State-105; Ibom-E-Library, Akwa Ibom-12; Chukwuemeka Odumegwu University, Igbariam-661. Anambra State; Deacons Digital Solutions Ltd-96; Federal Poly, Oko 314, Mega Dataview, Onitsha-733.
Others are Bayelsa State; Linnet Paul Innovative Institute, Yenagoa- 3435; Niger Delta University-1200; Edo State: Diict, Benin-81;Gateway Edutech,Benin-10; Gifted Hands science and Technology, Benin-223; NABTEB ICT Training Centre, Benin-291; Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa-670 and Supreme ICT Foundation, Benin-22.
The list also includes Enugu State: Elco ICT, Nsukka-538; Peaceland And Stalwart Solutions, Enugu-554; Union ICT-773; Kaduna State: Time online ICT, Sabon Tasha, Kaduna-67: Lagos State: Duntro High School, Surulere-21; Elite BusinessConsult, Ikorodu 218 and Rivers State: Ave Maria international academy, Rumuodara, Port Harcourt-1731.
