The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says knives-wielding candidates of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) candidates threatened JAMB officials and representatives with violence.

The allegation followed reports, which JAMB admitted, that many candidates at the Christ Ambassadors College, Sabon Tasha, Kaduna Centre, could not sit the exam due to technical hitches.

Balkisu Abdullahi, the JAMB supervisor at the centre, explained that the server could not accommodate 250 computers simultaneously, as planned.

The JAMB official accused the candidates’ parents of being unhelpful amid the threats of violence.

“The situation on Tuesday was terrifying as some of the candidates were wielding knives and threatening us when we were explaining the technical hitches and what we intended doing to remedy the situation,” the JAMB supervisor alleged.

She advised parents to guide and teach their children good manners, saying that coming to examinations with knives was unacceptable.

“The parents did not also help the issue when rather than calming their children, some of them were shouting at the top of their voice, threatening to take legal action against JAMB,” stated Ms Abdullahi.

Ms Abdullahi said candidates who missed the examination on the first and second days were asked to submit their examination slips to enable JAMB to reschedule their examination to another day.

The JAMB supervisor stated she regretted the technical hitches, adding that JAMB was working with the centre management to address the issue, just as she assured parents that no candidate would miss the examination.

The Christ Ambassadors College manager, Tosin Akinpeloye, explained that the technical hitches occurred because of a JAMB server upgrade to work well on computers with Co i7 processors.

Ms Akinpeloye said the school’s computer centre had 260 laptops and 20 desktop computers running on Co i5 processors.

“I assure you that all the candidates that will write the examination on Thursday will do so without a hitch,” she said.

The situation was, however, different at Kaduna State University centre, where the JAMB coordinator, Benedict Opke, said the facilities were working perfectly and the candidates were well-behaved.

One of the candidates at the centre, 15-year-old Favour Bamigboye, who wants to become a doctor, said the examination went smoothly without a hitch.

Similarly, some candidates who wrote the examination at Queen Amina College centre commended JAMB and the school management for a hitch-free exercise.

“This is the first time I am writing the UTME, and I am impressed because everything went smoothly,” one of the candidates at the centre, Hafsat Abubakar, said. 

(NAN)