By Felix Khanoba
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has given a blow-by-blow account of how 22 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres allegedly defrauded 11,823 candidates to the tune of N59 million in order to illegally effect requested changes on their registration profiles.
CBT centres are mostly owned by private individuals and serve as registration points and exam centres for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by JAMB.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said the affected 22 CBT centres, which the Board has now delisted from all its activities, carried out the alleged 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.
Oloyede, who stated this during a virtual meeting with representatives of the affected CBT centres, said that 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.
On the fraudulent activities of the CBT operators, the JAMB boss said: “Some of you were collecting N3, 000, N5, 000 from candidates (for an amount that was supposed to be N200 as service charge for the centre). What you have collected is over N59 million.”
He said the Board has concrete proof of the infractions to nail the affected centres as it made undercover payments to the CBT operators in order to actually detect the fraud.
A representative of one of the affected centres, Duntro CBT centre, David Ugochukwu, blamed the illegal act on his technical staff, saying that they have been sacked from the organisation.
Other CBT representatives who spoke at the meeting, apologised and admitted to the illegal activities but mainly blamed the infraction on technical staff.
The affected CBT centres are Bright Stars, Aba; Flourish Computer Centre, Akwa Ibom State; Chukwuemeka Odumegwu University, Igbariam and Linnet Paul Innovative Institute, Yenagoa.
The list also includes NABTEB ICT Training Centre, Benin, Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa, Duntro High School, Surulere, Lagos, Union ICT; Kaduna, among others.
