Former presidential
spokesman, Reuben Abati, is at it again. In this article titled, "Matters
Arising," he makes shocking revelations on the just concluded Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination (UTME) even as he eulogizes Prof. Ish-aq Oloyede for
a job well done.
Read the full
article below:
I attended a
meeting recently at the headquarters of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation
Board in Bwari, Abuja: the post-2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination
review meeting chaired by the JAMB registrar, Professor Ish-aq Oloyede.
Participants included Professor Oloyede and his technical team, field officers
and other staff, all the Chief External Examiners who supervised the 2017 UTME,
across Nigeria, mostly Vice-Chancellors of universities, and provosts/rectors
of polytechnics and colleges of education, in addition to major stakeholders
from civil society.
The JAMB
Registrar presented a detailed report on the conduct of the 2017 UTME, matters
arising were identified and the meeting took certain decisions about the way
forward, the details of which have since been published. The 2017 UTME was
conducted throughout Nigeria between Saturday 13th and Saturday 20th May 2017,
at 140 examination centres, 642 Computer-Based Test Centres, with 7,000
invigilators and monitors and 1, 722, 236 candidates.
It was the
first examination to be conducted under Professor Oloyede’s watch as JAMB
Registrar. He was full of appreciation for the efforts and contributions of
everyone, including the civil society and security agencies who helped to
ensure the success of the examination. The meeting noted that Oloyede and his
team had also done an excellent job in organizing a commendable Computer-Based
Examination across the country. In recent years, JAMB has insisted on
computerizing its examinations, and under Oloyede, there has been not only an
emphasis on this but also on the integrity and credibility of the examination.
The Report presented by the JAMB Registrar was comprehensive, confident and
informative.
In 2017, JAMB
examined the highest number of candidates in its forty years of existence:
1.7million, with the highest number of participating external officials and
monitors. The first point the meeting noted however, was that the figure of 1.7
m does not actually reflect the true number of candidates who sat for the
examination. More than 300, 000 of the candidates engaged in double or triple
registration, and where it could be established that any candidate sat for the
examination more than once, such a candidate was automatically disqualified. A
total of 666 cases were reported in this regard.
For planning
purposes, the figure of 1.7 m was misleading, a fact that was worsened by the
fact that more than 50% of the candidates do not even have the pre-requisite
qualifications, and in reality, more than 70% of all candidates applied for
courses in the Arts and Social Sciences, whereas for national manpower
development purposes, the expectation is that the Sciences should produce up to
70%.
The message
here is clear: higher education admission processes ought to reflect the
country’s manpower needs, and there is no doubting the fact that at the moment,
there is a mismatch between our country’s manpower production processes and the
job market, and this is perhaps in a way responsible for the country’s
unemployment crisis. As it were, Nigeria’s higher education system produces
graduates that do not fit into the demands of the job market.
Oloyede was
more agitated about matters of integrity, credibility, accountability and
transparency. He asked the meeting to take a close look at cases of examination
irregularities and malpractice and take a decision. We were informed that a
total of 1, 386 candidates all properly identified and documented were guilty
of the following offences: impersonation, possession of prepared answer
scripts, smuggling of foreign materials into the examination venue, possession
of electronic gadgets including telephone, copying and spying from foreign
materials, unruly behaviour, violent conduct, collusion, multiple registration
and examinations. We were all shocked when Oloyede asked his staff to present
to the meeting, concrete evidence of examination malpractice. We were shown
shirts, with presumed answers written out in the inner lining, slippers, belts,
handkerchiefs, and all kinds of strange devices that candidates across the
country smuggled into examination centres.
It turned out
that a criminal gang had developed around the UTME, involving persons who
deceived candidates into believing that they had access to examination
questions. Such questions with prepared answers were sold to candidates ahead
of the examination. But according to JAMB, this was meaningless, because the
examination questions were sent electronically to the centres only on the day
of the examination, and JAMB did not use the same set of questions, at any
time, either in the morning or the afternoon.
The bigger
problem came from the operators of the Computer-Based Test Centres, who
colluded with candidates and parents to compromise the examination. Many of
these CBT centres collected gate fees, ranging from N2, 000 to N20, 000 and
higher, they recruited thugs, they deliberately created technical problems to
assist candidates to cheat (in some cases, the CCTVs installed by JAMB were
either switched off or covered up); some centres also ran parallel
communication cables to secret rooms where ghost candidates who had done what
is called 8 x 2 fingerprinting, involving a candidate and a substitute,
ghost-wrote the examination. Oloyede reported that JAMB did its best to track
down all the fraudulent centres, across the country, 25 centres were involved
in centre-induced malpractice, with 57, 646 candidates. Some other centres had
technical issues, and in total, JAMB proposed that 72 centres in 18 states of
the Federation should either be delisted or suspended.
We considered
the report on every affected centre on a case-by-case basis, with each Chief
Examiner responding to further enquiries, and at the end, the meeting resolved
that 48 centres involved in extortion and malpractices should be delisted,
while 24 centres should be suspended for a year. The statistics on 2017 UTME
malpractice is noteworthy. Most of the affected states are from the South East
and South South as follows: Abia (381 cases), Imo (193), Anambra (152), Enugu
(114), Cross River (78), Ebonyi (48), Akwa Ibom (44) while the states with the
lowest number of cases are from the North viz: Kebbi (1), Kaduna (16), Kano
(29), Katsina (2), Kogi (7) Sokoto (25), Taraba (4), Zamfara (1). Yobe and
Jigawa states had no reported case of examination malpractice, only 2 cases of
multiple registration from the latter. Could it be then that students and CBT
operators in the North are more honest than their Southern counterparts, or
perhaps less computer savvy? Does the 2017 UTME say anything about national
character?
Our
deliberations did not cover this particular detail, but the meeting became more
exciting when the involvement of parents, particularly mothers, was reported.
In one centre, a mother was said to have approached the Chief Examiner to ask
him to assist her daughter to pass the examination. The Chief Examiner
reportedly told her to leave the examination venue, but she insisted that if
the Chief Examiner was ready to help, as requested, she was prepared to pay in
kind. The alarmed Professor and Examiner told her it was not part of his
function to do what she wanted. The UTME, he said is a merit-based examination.
The woman, not
giving up, asked for the hotel where the Professor was staying. She offered to
join him in the hotel later in the day! In another state, an invigilator lured
a young lady to the control room with the promise that if she would co-operate
with him, he would help her to pass the UTME. Other invigilators caught the two
of them and promptly reported the matter. When the young lady’s mother was
informed about what had happened, her response was most unusual. She was not
willing to press charges, or talk about the scandal. She was in fact not
bothered at all. She would rather talk about something else. What did she want?
She wanted JAMB to compensate her daughter with additional 10 marks or more, to
make up for the sexual harassment. We were all alarmed. Strange things really
happen.
Someone then
remarked that JAMB should take a decision and ban mothers from following their
children to examination centres and all husbands should be advised to keep an
eye on wives who will go to any length to mislead their children. Again, the
meeting did not concentrate on this delicate subject. But someone made a point:
“You see this thing called corruption. It starts from the home. Many parents
are setting very bad examples for their children. There is too much desperation
in our country. The anti-corruption campaign should start with parents.”
Nonetheless, the
meeting resolved that JAMB should introduce the use of electronic jammers at
examination centres as part of measures to discourage centre-induced
malpractice, the results of 1,386 candidates found guilty of examination
malpractice should be cancelled, 57,646 centre-induced malpractice results
should also be cancelled, while a supplementary examination should be held on
July 1, for candidates who lost time due to the malfunctioning of servers,
technical and log out issues, Biometric Verification related issues, late
registration due to no fault of theirs, incomplete results and candidates of
centres with mass malpractice but who are deemed innocent.
The JAMB
Registrar further informed us that the examination body was ready to go to
court where necessary to prosecute persons involved in examination malpractice,
and that should any manager of a CBT centre find it necessary to challenge JAMB
in court, he and his team would be glad to meet such persons in court. I like
Oloyede’s spirit and the enthusiasm of his freshly energized team. The larger
question is why examination, something considered a serious routine in other
countries, is such a nightmare in Nigeria. Students cheat, parents collude with
agents to help their children to cheat, examination consultants are worse, the
kind of reports we receive daily about examinations in Nigeria sound fictional
but they are worrisome because they are real. It is tragic that our public
examinations are no better than Nigerian elections!
Just before
the meeting ended, the representative from Akwa Ibom stood up and said he had a
letter for the JAMB Registrar – one of the JAMB officials who served as a
Proctor in Akwa Ibom state would need to assist the police with investigations
into a case of examination malpractice and give evidence in court
“I heard about
that case. I have directed that the lady should leave for Akwa Ibom and stay
there until you are through with the investigations. Who is her direct
supervisor?’, Oloyede asked.
One of the
directors raised his hand.
“Ha. Doctor.
That lady is excused from work until further notice. She should relocate to
Akwa Ibom and assist with investigations. We will pay her DTA and provide
whatever support she needs. Wherever there is any reported case, we must follow
it up to prove that we will not tolerate any form of corruption or malpractice
where our examinations are involved. The examiner from Akwa Ibom, you can keep her
for as long as you want until you get to the root of the matter. Meeting!
Approved?”
“App-ro-ved!”,
we all chorused.
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