The Joint Admission and Matriculation
Board (JAMB), has so far registered 600, 000 candidates for the 2017 Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) across the country.
Dr Fabian Benjamin, Head of Public
Relations JAMB, made this known on Monday in an interview with the News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) in Bwari, FCT.
He said that JAMB was not going to
extend the registration period, saying that before deadline every candidate
will register.
The spokesman said that measures were
on ground to ensure the regulated platform could help candidates to get
registered before the end of the month and to prevent irregularities in
registration.
Benjamin observed that some applicants
were seeking extension of the UTME registration deadline due to irregularities
in the ongoing registration process.
According to him, it is wrong for any
person to also think that there is inadequacy in the number of centres
stipulated to register candidates for the UTME.
“We have already registered 600, 000
candidates since sales of form began March 20, how can there be inadequate
centres or lack of manpower, when we have more than 400 centres.
“There is no such delay as alleged by
some candidates, the issue here is that plenty people are registering for the
UTME at the same time.
“The internet is working, if it is not
working how then we arrived at the total of 600, 000 that have so far been duly
registered.
“Large numbers of applicants seeking
to register for UTME go to the Banks allocated for the exercise that is why
there seem to be some form of delays and irregularities.
“Before we used three banks and now it
is 15 banks because the period is short, but we are not going to extend the
registration period, before deadline every candidate will register,” he said.
JAMB spokesman told NAN that the
initiative for use of the platform to register candidates for the UTME was in
line with the Board’s policy to ensure standards operation.
He, however, said that 25 persons have
been arrested and handed over to the Police for illegal registration and sale
of the 2017 UTME materials to candidates across the country.
He mentioned that the suspects were
arrested by a combined team of Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU);
members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the
Nigeria Police Force. (NAN)
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