More than 80 per cent of the 98,232 candidates eligible for the nationwide mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) failed to turn up for the examination on Saturday.

The registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this in Abuja during the monitoring exercise of the rescheduled examinations.

Mr Oloyede attributed the development to intensified security measures targeting impersonators and exam cheats.

He said the turnout was alarmingly low, with only about 12 per cent of registered candidates showing up across the country.

“Every year, we do mop-up, and it is normally for about 4,000 to 5,000 students, who, for illness or other genuine reasons, could not take the exam.

“Mop-up is also conducted for candidates who, after our review, we find out had technical problems in their centres,” he said.

Mr Oloyede explained that this year’s large mop-up pool was necessitated by allegations of widespread absence in the main examination.

He said the board opted to give everyone a second chance while also leveraging intelligence gathered from security agencies.

“In the wisdom of the management and our stakeholders, we felt everybody who missed the exam should be given the opportunity.

“However, given the intelligence we have gathered in conjunction with the DSS and the police, we were really prepared to apprehend those who will be impersonating,’ he said.

He added that some CBT centres expecting 250 candidates per session recorded fewer than 20 attendees.

“It is anticipated because, from intelligence gathering, what you have is a bunch of syndicates, particularly those who say they are tutorial centres.

“There are some private school proprietors who have become syndicates of examination malpractices,” Mr Oloyede said.

He added that with the Ministry of Education’s determination to lead the war, exam malpractice would be reduced to the barest minimum.

The JAMB boss also disclosed that some individuals attempted to cheat by falsely declaring themselves as albino to exploit facial recognition vulnerabilities.

“We have never had even up to 100 albinos any year, but this year, we have 1,787 albinos,” he said.

The registrar emphasised that suspected impersonators who failed to take the exam after alleging exclusion from the main UTME would not escape accountability.

“They registered with their name. They have schools. They have NINs and their phone numbers. The security agencies are capable of picking them. In fact, a number of them have already been picked up,” he said.

Mr Oloyede also hinted that parents found financing examination malpractice for their children would soon face investigation and possible prosecution.

Speaking on Direct Entry (DE) admissions, Mr Oloyede revealed that 14 candidates had already been apprehended for presenting forged certificates.

He lamented the role of educational institutions in the perpetration of the fraud.

“A new one that we discovered yesterday in the ongoing registration was that about 20 to 30 students who did not go through NCE were being awarded NCE certificates in order to be able to register for direct entry.

“One of the students who finished secondary school in 2021 was purportedly said to have been admitted for the NCE programme in 2020,” Mr Oloyede added.

(NAN)