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Hands them to NSCDC for prosecution

By Joseph Erunke

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, yesterday handed over 38 operators of various Computer Based Test, CBT centres to operatives of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, for prosecution over cybercrimes.

The suspects, who were said to have allegedly indulged in the cyber crimes, using the Virtual Private Network, VPN, were from the six geopolitical zones of the country.

VPN extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing services were directly connected to the private network.

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JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, speaking at the board’s headquarters, Abuja, where the suspects were handed over to operatives of NSCDC for onward prosecution, explained that suspects who are operators CBT centres, extended the VPN  to illegal outposts to register some candidates for the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, and those seeking admission through Direct Entry (DE).

A one-on-one engagement between the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede and the arrested CBT operators at the Board’s headquarters in Bwari, revealed that some had registered fictitious names and National Identity Numbers (NIN) with JAMB as staff of the CBT centres.

By implication, the fate of all UTME/DE candidates who knowingly or ignorantly registered at the illegal registration centres is presently unknown as there is no clear indication if they would be allowed to sit for this year’s examinations or other arrangements are out in place to capture them.

Oloyede, who frowned at the development, said: “An average parent does not want the child to queue even for ten minutes.”

He spoke further:”They will prefer that they will go and pay these people extra money and they will claim to have done it for them not knowing the incalculable damage that they are doing to their own children.

“Even if we have destroyed our own generation, let the incoming generation have the opportunity of building a better tomorrow for us and that’s our position. As s far as we are concerned a prima facie case of cybercrime has been established against them.

“The appropriate security agencies will take over from here and deal with the matter. They will go and give their statements to the law enforcement agencies; yours is just to arrest you can’t say they will go to prison, it’s beyond you, its the judge who will determine that. We would have done our own part of it but please help us appeal to candidates and their parents to go through the normal process.

“All those candidates that have been defrauded knew that they were not registering at the right place and they were going there thinking that it will work at the end of the day, it will not work and when it will not work, that time the press will be saying JAMB does not know what it’s doing.”

He warned all owners and operators of JAMB approved CBT centres to strictly adhere to the laid down rules and regulations in registering candidates. He added that JAMB was better equipped to monitor and track all illegality surrounding its activities in any part of the country.

“Other CBT centres should keep within the regulations. When we ask you to register candidates you register candidates according to the rules, nothing outside the law should be done.

“We have published the list of all the centres and they are available in all our state offices across the country and in our weekly bulletin including those we have blacklisted. Let people register in approved CBT centres and no candidate should give their password or code to anybody not even to your parents

UTMEOFFICIAL.COM