By Ibukun Emiola
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cleared itself of multiple scheduling of one Aminat Yahaya Suleiman in the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise.
Speaking with the newsmen in Ibadan on Saturday, the Public Relations Officer, JAMB, Dr Benjamin Fabian, said the video made on Tiktok by Aminat alleging the board was false.
He said the candidate registered for the examination in Abuja but relocated to Ibadan without notifying JAMB through the change of location option available on its portal.
Fabian also said having investigated the matter, it was discovered that Aminat Yahaya Suleiman and her sister, Zainab Yahaya Suleiman, as she claimed, shared the same phone using two different numbers which were registered with JAMB, hence the multiple messages received on the same phone.
He said there were various indications that Aminat might had registered twice using two different NIN because the photos on the JAMB portal on the two registration had a striking resemblance aside from other issues regarding the use of awaiting results for the NECO she wrote since 2018 at age 14.
The PRO said another suspicious activity was that the forms filled on the JAMB portal had both candidates chosen to study Islamic Studies at the University of Abuja with the same surname and middle name.
Fabian said her claim that she was in Ibadan and was asked to go to Abuja to write the exam was false because candidates were the ones to choose locations where they would write UTME and the option of change of location existed.
“There are two fundamental issues we want to establish: when she filled her form, did she pick Ibadan and JAMB pushed her to Abuja to write the examination or she picked Abuja to write her exam?
“The second one is: was she rescheduled to write this exam and then rescheduled again? These are the fundamental issues.
“When we send a message to her, we discover that the message goes to another candidate. Who is this candidate? We want to know the identity?” Fabian said.
The social media influence who took up Aminat’s case and called out JAMB, Saheed Oladele, apologised to the commission for the misunderstanding that ensued and appreciated the body for allowing the candidate to write her examination in Ibadan.
Oladele said when the matter of Aminat was reported to him he was concerned that she had written UTME in Abuja and had been rescheduled to write it again in Abuja, whilst she resides in Ibadan.
“I went to the public on social media as the quickest way to reach our leaders. I did a video to let them know what she had been going through so that JAMB could do something.
“To God be the glory, JAMB has been very proactive on this matter and it has shown that it is truly a responsible organisation because this girl has just written her exam, which is the major thing I am after.
“Truly, there was a mix-up, she did not take the exam twice in Abuja. She wrote it once but the second time she went to the centre because her sister who was receiving her messages was also receiving from the other sister because they are two.
“When the message came it was an anonymous message, so they don’t know who the message was for. So the two of them went to the centre, Zainab was allowed in but Aminat was not,” Oladele said.
Oladele said she relied on the information sent to Aminat by JAMB and did not do further verification or reach out to JAMB before alleging the commission using social media platforms.
In her response, Aminat apologised to JAMB for the embarrassment caused by her action and thanked the commission for allowing her to write the examination in Ibadan.
“I wrote my JAMB the first time and the second time they brought the message and we do not know who the message was for. So my elder sister now said that we should go to the CBT centre together.
“They allowed my elder sister to write the exam and I was asked to stay outside. I chose Abuja as my centre to write the examination and I relocated to Ibadan,” Aminat said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that candidates who had issues in writing the 2023 UTME due to technical glitches were rescheduled to write the exam on Saturday, 6th May. (NAN)
