59,000 To Retake Examination: JAMB 2016

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board on
Friday said the board would reschedule examination
for candidates who missed the Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination because of relocation of
centres by the board.

The board said it relocated 59,000 candidates in 15
states because of problems in some of the centres.
It also said candidates who had system failure during
the examination would retake it, if the board finds their
complaint to be genuine.
The Registrar of the board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, who
said this at a press conference in Abuja, added that
the new development does not affect candidates who
missed the examination deliberately or failed in the
examination.

Ojerinde said among the 1,546,633 candidates that sat
for the 2016 UTME, 145,704 had issues of multiple
results, which have been resolved by the board.
Prof. Ojerinde added that 23,577 candidates were
absent on the day of the examination.
“We relocated candidates where the board had
challenges. The board is looking at some of the issues
raised during the examination, but most of the
excuses raised by candidates are flimsy,” he said.
“We relocated about 59, 000 candidates due to the
problems in various centres which vary from town to
town. There are about 59,000 of them spread across
15 states of the federation.
“Those that were relocated never suffered any setback
or inconvenience. For all these two sets of people, I
want to apologise sincerely for what happened to
them, but we are going to put on a redress for those
whose relocation affected them in missing their
examination.

“Let me use this opportunity to offer explanation on
the issue of the much-publicized two results. The
process of our marking involves transformation and
other qualitative programming. In the process of these
configurations, we had a little challenge which we
quickly corrected and ensured that this never
happened in subsequent results. This challenge was
only associated with the candidates that sat for this
examination on Saturday, 27, and some candidates of
Monday, 29 February, 2016.”

Prof. Ojerinde said the board found out that some of
the over 500 centres used for the CBT was
compromised by the operators.

He said that one of its centres in Uromi, Edo State
was invaded by mercenaries during the examination.
He blamed the education consultants for mobilizing
candidates to protest against the conduct of the
examination by the board, adding that the quality of
the centres used for UTME would not be compromised.
He said: “In our quest to have adequate and effective
centres for the exercise, we approved over 500
centres, but unfortunately, some of the centre
operators were not sincere in proving us with the true
position of their facilities.

“They hired equipment during the period of
accreditation and other necessary apparatus and on
the examination day, they were found wanting. This
led to relocation or rescheduling of candidates from
some of them to more suitable centres.”
Ojerinde said Nigeria was ready to take the CBT
examination, adding that reverting to the PPT as
directed by the House of Representatives would
amount to lack of progress.

According to him, the CBT would be improved upon.
He said: “Even the physically challenged are taking the
CBT examination. One of the blind candidates scored
286, so why should others complain?

“Going back to the Paper and Pencil Test will amount
to taking one step forward and two steps backwards.”
The Nation.