The Registrar and Chief Executive of Officer, Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has lamented that many Nigerians blame the body for the 912,013 illegal admissions processed by tertiary institutions in the country.
This was as the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Muhammad Fadah, vowed to block further attempts by corps producing institutions to present unqualified persons for national service.
Oloyede, however, said JAMB won’t hesitate to prove its innocence and expose those culpable for the nearly one million illegal admissions into tertiary schools between 2017 and 2020.
Both he and Fadah stated these at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Batch ‘C’ pre-mobilisation workshop of the NYSC in Abuja, yesterday.
Speaking, the JAMB Registrar, said: “All problems related to mobilisation either rightly or wrongly are put at the doorstep of JAMB.
“We are ready to accept, but will continue to say that while are ready to take the blame, we won’t hesitate to prove our innocence. We will be proving our innocence by exposing those who are actually culpable.
“We have over 900 institutions that are producing, for admission, candidates with JAMB, but we have continued to take measures in conjunction with the NYSC to make sure that the fake ones among those who are being mobilised are demobilised.
“One of the steps we have taken is to introduce the Central Admissions Processing System, CAPS which accommodates all the genuine cases and exposes all the bad ones.
“CAPS has shown clearly that those who are bad have nowhere to hide and will continue to be exposed.
“We started CAPS in 2017, and some people thought it was a joke, but we have come out with the list of people who have been illegally admitted between 2017 and 2020.
“As of today, on their own, tertiary institutions who had initially denied any culpability, have confessed they gave illegal admission to close to one million candidates between 2017 and 2021.
“Last year, the Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu, eventually granted amnesty and directed that we should try and see how we can rescue close to one million candidates that have been illegally admitted.
“If you take into consideration that the country admits about 600,000 candidates into tertiary institutions each year, you will realise that close to one million (illegal candidates) is enough to destabilise the system.”
Consequently, called on corps producing institutions to make sure that they follow the rules.
He also disclosed that there are different shades of malpractices in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by JAMB.
“If you’re talking about cheating in the exams hall and trying to change the marks, go to Southern Nigeria. However, if you’re talking about manipulating the registration process before the exams, go to Northern Nigeria,” he said.
Other issues the JAMB Registrar identified as bedevilling the system include: Student trying to compromise staff for mobilisation, fraudsters defrauding candidates with fake admission, delay by institutions in processing genuine admissions, and the delegation of authorities by institutions to less qualified persons who are compromising their integrity.
On his part, the NYSC DG expressed concern about the declining quality of graduates being presented for mobilization.
According to Fadah, “During the 2022 Batch ‘B’ Streams I and II Orientation programmes, our field officers detected a good number of Prospective Corps Members, especially those claiming to be foreign trained, with shocking inability to defend their supposed educational qualifications.
“Series of confessions were extracted from them, and these will hopefully assist us in carrying out further investigations.
“You will agree with me that there is the compelling need for school managers and other stakeholders in education to rise to the occasion and nip this problem in the bud.”
Earlier, the NYSC Director, Corps Mobilisation, Mrs. Victoria Ango, explained that part of the efforts to contain the menace of fraudulent mobilisation informed the choice of the workshop theme: ‘Stemming fraudulent enlistment in mobilisation process: Time for drastic action to arrest menace.’
According to her, “The theme is an expression of management’s desire and determination to employ result-oriented measures to some of challenges.
“The ultimate aim is not to witch-hunt anyone but to discourage deliberate acts of dishonesty to serve deterrent others.”