Fifty (50) offenders have been nabbed by the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination UTME in the country.
The board’s head of media and publicity, Dr Fabian Benjamin, today Tuesday disclosed the arrest, saying the arrest was made easy following some intelligence gathering by the board.
According to reports from the Guardian Nigeria, some of the fraudsters are master’s degree holders, postgraduate and undergraduate students of tertiary institutions.
“These professional writers connived with some Computer-Based Test centre owners to perpetuate this crime through engaging in multiple registrations whereby the fingerprints of the actual candidates and their impersonators are captured side by side”, the report said.
Benjamin, who spoke on behalf of the board, said that one of the apprehended impersonators confessed to the multiple registrations of his biometric along with several other candidates preparing to the UTME with the intention to sit the exam on behalf of them in exchange for a hefty sum of money.
JAMB further said due to the development, it would revalidate the biometrics of candidates that have taken its examination in recent times.
“This timely action would enable the board to not only fish out and dismantle this registration cartels and racketeers but also bring them to book along with their collaborators,” the JAMB spokesman said.
Meanwhile, JAMB has announced a new process on CBT exam, results for this year.
Concluding, Benjamin said the board had set up the machinery to effect the arrest and prosecute all those involved in the crime.