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Suspends Federal Poly, others for extortion

By Adesina Wahab

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, made the sum of N2,272,681,643:00 in one week of selling forms for the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME, to admission seekers in the nation’s tertiary institutions.

This was contained in the weekly newsletter of the Board detailing some of its activities from January 17-23, 2024 obtained by our correspondent.

Under the column Financial Inflow, the money was made from the sales of e-registration pin – N2,122,400,000:00, e-facility sales – N128,816,602:00 and CBT centre service charges – N21,465,041,:00.

READ ALSO: 2024 UTME: JAMB registers 700,000 candidates in 2 weeks

The statement also showed that the Board had a total cash outflow of N113,210,135:07 during the same period.

The expenses were made up of staff claims – N9, 457,651:61, stakeholders meeting (monitoring and task teams) – N15,350,000, publicity and advertisement – N18,979,282, agency services (out-sourced security)  – N5,399,000, Albencon Nig. Ltd (Kaduna PTC) – N30,833,445:45, FIRS (taxes) – N31,059,910:98 and Remita (bank charges) – N37,065.

Meanwhile, the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State has been suspended as a registration centre for the coming UTME examination over the extortion of applicants.

Two other centres, one in Umunede, Delta State and the other in Nsukka, Enugu State were also axed for the same offense.

This is also as four centres, including the Cloud Computing Auditorium, Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile Ife, were suspended for technical deficiency during a third party exam.

Also, 38 registration centres indicted for various infractions by the Board are scheduled to meet the management of the Board in Abuja on Wednesday to defend allegations levelled against them.

Meanwhile, two suspects arrested in connection with the extortion of candidates in Umunede, Delta State, are to be prosecuted by the police.

They are Ambrose Okogwa, 65 and Fidelis Imafidon, 50.

They were arrested by the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. NSCDC, for selling e-pins above the stipulated amount of N4,700.

READ ALSO: Lagos NSCDC parades eight JAMB registration racketeers

While being paraded by the State Commandant of the NSCDC, Dr. Benito Eze, Okogwa said he acted in ignorance.

He confessed that he only makes a profit of N300 on each candidate after paying all required fees to the bank.

The Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, said anybody found selling the pins for more than the stipulated amount would be dealt with.

He noted that the desire of the Federal Government to make the exam accessible to as many applicants as possible informed the reason for bringing down the cost lower than last year’s.

vanguard