The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board on Tuesday stated that the North was fast becoming the epicenter for examination malpractices in the country.
The examination body noted that 20 Computer Based Test (CBT) centres caught in the act of trying to change candidates’ picture and other details are from the region.
The board stated that the fraud was perpetrated in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno and Sokoto states.
JAMB said 400 perons who committed one infraction or the other against the activities of the board was in the custody of security agencies, with over 200 ready for prosecution.
The board said the 400 candidates involved those currently seeking admissions into institutions across the country with some tertiary institutions as accomplices in the widespread irregularities.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof Is –haq Oloyede stated this during a press briefing while parading two persons nabbed in Kano for allegedly attempting to change a photograph used in last year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) registration in Bayero University, Kano.
According to him, the first 64 cases of CBT infractions currently treated by the board were from the north, with some having multiple cases of up to 96 irregularities.
“This year, we have over 400 people that were caught whereby those who wrote the exams were different from those who applied. We are waiting for the institutions to come up and report activities of the fraudsters.
“The institutions should be vigilant and we appeal to those young ones that the game is up. There is nothing they do that will not be detected,” the registrar stated.
The registrar vowed that 200 of the candidates would be prosecuted, one from each state of the federation as the board does not have the resources to prosecute all the 400 candidates.
According to him, prosecuting a candidate would cost the board over N500, 000.
Oloyede said: “At the appropriate time we should prosecute at least 200 out of the 400. What we intend to do is to pick like five from each of the states of the federation.
“To prosecute one case you will have to spend nothing less than N500, 000 because your staff will be going from one place to the other. When they go to court, at times the court will not sit, you will go back as witness, somebody travelling from Kano to Abuja or Abuja to Kano, will be going five times to do that.
“It cost a lot of money. Technology will give us all of them; we will now use federal character by picking across the states. And then prosecute, because we don’t have the resources to prosecute all of them.
Meanwhile, one Buhari Abubakar, who was caught in an attempt to impersonate and his alleged accomplice in examination malpractice, Muhammad Sanusi, both from Kano state were also paraded before newsmen after being arrested by men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC.
Abubakar, a candidate of last year’s UTME, had paid Sanusi N25, 000 to source for an examination-taker to sit the UTME for him, on the basis of which he secured admission into Bayero University, Kano, BUK, to read Islamic studies.
“However, the arrangement ran into hitches when all the candidate’s details.
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