Students who manipulated their way through the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to get admission to universities will soon be arrested and have their certificates withdrawn.
This is as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) launches a 10-year probe into suspected malpractices during the nationwide exams.
The Head, Media and Information of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, said this during an interview with newsmen on Monday.
Benjamin said, “We want to do what we call biometric verification dating back to 10 years.
“Even if you are now working and we discovered that someone wrote exams for you, we will publish your name and the law agencies will do the needful.
Explaining how impersonation takes place, Benjamin added, “This is how they operate: My name is Fabian Benjamin, but I will register as Abdullahi Musa and write exams for Abdullahi Musa; but I will use Fabian Benjamin’s picture and biometric data; only the name will be different.
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“I will register as John David, as Austin Steven. I will register in the name of anyone that pays me, write exams for that person, but I will use my picture.
“What this means is that when I get into the hall, the biometric data verification will allow me to enter, but I will write the exam for someone else.
“The person for whom exams were written would get into university and, of course, most universities don’t use the pictures of JAMB during admissions. But what we want to enforce now is that the institutions must use the picture of the person.
“We will give the institution the photo and it must match. In fact, only our picture must be accepted by the institution.”
Benjamin said, “If you graduated from university and you did not write UTME, it means the foundation is faulty and the building cannot stand.
“We have already started the probe, but we will go deeper after the exams.
“It will not take too long. We are using software, so it will just check the biometric data of candidates and if the biometric data of someone shows about six different names, then it will notify us.
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