By Rosemary Ogbonnaya
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board said it has received complaints from some parents and students that one or two institutions are collecting money ranging from N10,000 to N80,000 from candidates purportedly for the processing of late or irregular admissions.
The Board’s Head of Media and Protocol, Dr. Fabian Benjamin disclosed this to journalists in Abuja on Friday.
Benjamin said the Board unequivocally dissociates itself from this exploitative act as it has not requested any institution to collect any fee on its behalf.
He said the board also does not demand or accept any fee from any of the institutions.
It will be recalled that the Board had announced the stoppage of condonement of illegal admission( Deceitfully called Regularization) from 2017. This was to address the irregularities in the admission process, ensure the accuracy of admission statistics as well as ensure transparency in the admission process.
” It was, therefore, a rude shock to the Management of the Board to receive the disheartening news of this barefaced exploitation of hapless and desperate students. It is to be borne in mind that these candidates are in their present predicament, in the first instance, as a result of the wanton disregard of extant regulations by some institutions leading to the conduct of underhand or backdoor admissions thus creating room for the avalanche of requests for condonement (Regularisation) which had long been discontinued by the Board on the directive of the Government.
“It was the seemingly hopeless situation of candidates seeking condonement that prompted the Hon. Minister of Education to graciously give approval for a final round of waiver or condonement,” he said.
The JAMB spokesperson said the various submissions by each institution are being given necessary considerations before the affected candidates could be captured in the Board’s database.
He further said that an advertisement on the process and procedure for post 2017 infraction would soon be widely published.
Benjamin, however, advised candidates with similar challenges who were admitted before 2017, to simply go online and pay a fee of not more than N5000 for the UTME Registration form which they had failed to obtain ab initio, saying their details would afterwards be captured, scrutinised and if minimally qualified then letters of admission would be released to them.
