JAMB Exam Fails to Hold in Borno as Candidates Stay Home in Fear

Despite assurances as to adequate security given by the management of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Borno, the exams could not hold.

The  Zonal Coordinator of JAMB in the state, Ahmed Ali, had made attempts to reassure the candidates on their safety during the exam as he stated that they would all be protected.

It seems however that the reassurances were made in futility as the registrar of the exam body, Dibu Ojerinde has stated that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination could not hold in Maiduguri, the state capital.

Professor Ojerinde made the disclosure while monitoring the conduct of the UTME in Abuja yesterday.

Punch reports:

The board conducted its Dual-Based Test and Paper Pencil Test on Saturday with no fewer than 1,015,504 candidates writing the examination. The tests qualify the candidates for admission to the nation’s universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Another batch of 616,574 candidates from May 17, 2014, will write the Computer-Based Test.

The board had last Tuesday assured that it had made adequate arrangements to ensure a hitch-free conduct of the UMTE in all the states, including Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

But speaking on Saturday, Ojerinde said, “JAMB candidates who were supposed to go to Maiduguri to write their exams have decided to stay at home. There are about 400 of them. We have told them we will cater for them. They are afraid of what will happen to them.”

Ojerinde said the affected candidates would sit for CBT instead of the PPT that they initially applied to write.

The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education, John Nwaobiala, who also spoke on the occasion, debunked reports that UTME candidates were among those attacked in Maiduguri.

He said, “There were some challenges that came up and the feeling was that since there were disturbances in that area, it might affect students movement.“

"What we are doing now is to ensure we have an opportunity.  The CBT is coming up so they will have the opportunity to write the examination. There will be no disenfranchisement of the candidate.”