Adefioye Iyunade
To curb examination malpractice and fraudulent acts in educational sector, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has blacklisted over 22 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres for allegedly defrauding 11,823 of its candidates to the tune of N59m.
The Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who made this known during a virtual meeting with representatives of the affected centres on Thursday, said the centres carried out the fraud by charging candidates more than the stipulated amount for effecting correction on profile and by-passing One-Time Password (OTP) required of candidates to initiate such changes.
He said the affected centres from nine states were indicted for the infractions, adding that any centre that shared the same ownership with the affected ones also stood being suspended from all JAMB activities.
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“The purpose of calling this meeting is to interact with 22 institutions that have grossly violated the prescription of the Board, particularly during COVID-19, and those who had done things not expected to do thereby endangering the lives of candidates they were supposed to protect.
“We have discovered that the 22 centres also defrauded candidates by collecting from them more than you are expected to collect and doing certain things that will bypass the normal process and procedure.
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“We have invited you to this meeting to hear you out and also let the public know how some of you are engaging in criminal activities in the process of registering candidates.
“There are some of you who can even be classified as certified fraudsters.”
The registrar also noted that the affected CBT centres owners would also be prosecuted as the board had reversed the changes done illegally by affected candidates.
He advised such candidates to change their passwords to avoid further damage following exposure of the secret code to operators of the now blacklisted CBT centres.
Oloyede lamented that such behaviour of fleecing innocent and non- innocent candidates of several amounts of money under the guise of effecting changes in registration details portends danger for the country.
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“Some of you were collecting N3, 000 and N5, 000 from candidates for an amount that is supposed to be N200 as service charge for the centre.
“What you have collected is over N59 Million. JAMB has concrete proof of the infractions because we under-covered payments to the centred in order to actually detect the fraud that was being perpetrated by them,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, a representative of Duntro CBT Centre, Mr. David Ugochukwu, blamed the illegal act on his technical staff, saying that they have been sacked from the organisation.
Ugochukwu claimed he had earlier written to JAMB to inform it of the identified breaches in the registration application that might allow the bypass of OTP in the correction of candidates’ data in their absence with the submission of their passwords.
Other CBT representatives, who spoke at the meeting, apologised and admitted to the illegal activities but blamed the problem on technical staff.
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