Over 80% of UTME registration problems caused by candidates —JAMB

The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has explained that most of the challenges faced by the applicants of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) during registration were due to their failure to follow simple instructions.

Oloyede disclosed this in a statement titled, ‘JAMB: Over 80% of registration problems linked to candidates’ fault’, issued on Wednesday by the board’s Director of Public Relations, Dr. Fabian Benjamin.

Ripples Nigeria reported that JAMB had on May 31, extended the registration for the 2021 UTME by an additional two weeks, saying that candidates now have between May 31 and June 15 to complete their registration because of issues with the National Identification Number (NIN).

The board had initially fixed May 29 as the deadline for the UTME registration but later made a U-turn, saying it would allow candidates with genuine reasons to have an extension of the registration timeframe.

However, JAMB noted that the exercise is for people to come and defend their claim on the challenges (they have with registration), those who claimed not to have NIN or obtained NIN late.

READ ALSO: JAMB extends 2021 UTME registration by two weeks

According to the statement, Oloyede said many of the candidates failed to follow simple instructions on the registration processes, noting that over 80 per cent of the challenges encountered were caused by this.

The statement read, “Many of them (candidates) were sending wrong things and commands for NIN, making NIMC unable to verify such numbers.

“The problems are self-created by the candidates, you are sending messages for a profile code and no credit of N50.”

Also, the JAMB boss said despite the extension of registration, the number of registrants fell drastically until towards the closing date, noting that about 1.38 million candidates procured the PIN for registration, while only 1.37 million had completed their registrations.

Even with the additional two weeks grace period, there are still complaints of inability to register due to lateness or non-delivery of NIN verification code, mismatch, or wrong names originally submitted to NIMC.

While saying there could be individuals with genuine cases, the JAMB boss had said the exam body would not allow anybody, particularly fraudsters to outsmart its watertight system by making fictitious claims, saying such people would be detected and eventually screened out.

By Victor Uzoho

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