UTME: Police constable arrested for engaging the services of a ‘mercenary’

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Friday confirmed the arrest of a police constable, Etim Israel, over alleged examination malpractice.

The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, said Israel engaged the services of a “mercenary” to write this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on his behalf.

The policeman, who is attached to the Akwa Ibom State Police Command, registered for the UTME with his name while the impersonator used his picture and other biometric details to sit for the exam.

He applied to study Fishery at the Akwa Ibom State University and scored 240 in the UTME.

Israel, according to the JAMB chief, confessed that he paid N30,000 to engage the services of the mercenary.

Oloyede said the policeman would be prosecuted in accordance with the law.

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He said: “When some candidates complain that they have registered for our examination but could not be verified on the day of examination, many do not grasp the full import of their claims as such candidates, who are more often than not impersonators, expected to be allowed to enter the examination hall without undergoing necessary searches.

“However, in the last UTME, JAMB introduced the taking of a snapshot of the candidate who claims they could not be verified and compared the new picture with the one in our database.

“As a result of this innovation, only a very few cases of impersonation were recorded compared with the number in the past.”

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