UTME: JAMB withholds 80,889 candidates’ results, says 640 will not be released

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) has withheld the results of over 80,000 candidates in the just-concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). 

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja, said that 76,923 of the affected candidates are being investigated for examination malpractice.
He said: “So far, we have released results of 1,606,901 candidates, leaving us with a balance of 80,889. Out of this 80,889, we have deliberately withheld 76,923 for further investigations because of alleged malpractices in the centres where the exams were held. We do not mean that all the 80,889 candidates committed infractions. Those that committed infractions may be less than 10 percent, but when malpractices happened at centres, the candidates’ results have to be investigated,” he said.
According to him, results of 640 candidates of the withheld results will not be released due to the candidates’ biometric verification problem.
Prof. Oloyede said JAMB would soon announce a date for supplementary examination for the affected candidates as well as the 3,811 candidates that registered late for the 2017 UTME.
The JAMB boss was disappointed at the high level of fraud and sophisticated malpractices perpetrated by some centers during the examination.
“The level of malpractices in the examination was high and it is like some CBT centres are setup to perpetrate malpractices,” Oloyede said, adding that the Board was able to frustrate all the tricks of the CBT operators.
He listed some of the them to include:
~Installation of wireless devices on roof tops to access JAMB questions.
~ The setting up of ‘VIP’ rooms in which candidates coughed out N200,000 for an­swers to exam questions
~ Deliberate disconnection of local network, and so many others.
Oloyode, however, said the Board had taken note of several CBT centres for blacklisting and some of the operators had been arrested.