There are strong indications that
thousands of prospective can-
didates for the 2020 Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Exam-
ination (UMTE) in Nigeria may be de-
prived the opportunity of sitting for this
year’s examination.
This, we learnt, may not be unconnect-
ed with their inability to register, secure
and submit to JAMB the mandatory Na-
tional Identity Numbers required of all
prospective candidates by JAMB.
Consequently, several of the candi-
dates have sent an S.O.S to the registrar
of JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, urging
him to consider waiving aside the NIN
as a major pre-requisite for sitting for the
2020 examinations.
They said they have been going through
untold hardship and frustrations in their
bid to acquire their identity number in
order to beat the deadline given for the
submission of their JAMB forms.
According to them, the whole exer-
cise, including the inadequate logistics
surrounding the attainment of the NIN,
appear to have been deliberately orches-
trated to frustrate the JAMB candidates
and make it impossible for them to fulfil
the registration obligation.
The Joint Admission and Matricula-
tion Board (JAMB) said it will conduct
its 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examinations (UTME) between March
14 and April 4, 2020.
One of the candidates, Molara
Akeem,(not real name) who spoke to us,
explained thus: “For the past three weeks,
I and my friends have been besieging
the Lagos Polytechnic Centre, Ikorodu
as early as 6.am with the hope of carry-
ing out our registration. We have been
unable to do so. Each time, we are told
the forms have finished. Even though
they claim the exercise is free of charge,
what we have been seeing is that unless
you bribe your way, they will not attend
to you. Some of the officials privately
collect as much as N5000 to facilitate
your registration in record time. Those
of us who cannot afford to pay are told
to come back. How long are we going to
endure this?”
The same scenario seems to be playing
out in several other centres. The typical
complain including shortage of forms,
breakdown of capturing machines, inadequate manpower, etc. Equally, only a
negligible number of those that besiege
the centres are being attended to on daily
basis. In some instances, some even spend
the night there in order to secure a vantage position for registration.
Many are wondering why Nigerians are
made to face so much hurdles in their
attempts to get their identity numbers,
despite the assurance by the relevant authorities that the exercise would be stress
free. They are therefore calling on the FG
to put in place more proactive measures
that would ease the process of acquiring
the identification numbers.
Candidates for this year’s JAMB are also
appealing to them to reconsider the mandate of producing identity numbers before registering for the exams. If the exercise must continue, they reason, adequate
measures must be put in place to speedy
up the process so that all eligible Nigerians
can be attended to as at when due.
It would be recalled that the Acting Director General of National Identity management Commission (NIMC), Mrs Hadiza Dagabana recently disclosed that over
700,000 National e-ID cards are yet to be
collected by Nigerians from its offices nationwide.
She was also quoted as saying that making NIN a criteria for all examinations in
the country would help to stop impersonation and other forms of malpractices.