The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board have exceeded over no fewer than 195 candidates in the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculations examination to the police for prosecution over alleged involvement in diverse examination malpractices.
JAMB said on Sunday that some of the applicants have been arraigned by using the police in various courts even as others were nevertheless present process similarly investigation and could additionally face trial.
The board in its weekly bulletin received via our correspondent posted the names and states of the 195 candidates.
Final week, it had released the names of 149 applicants with Imo, Anambra and Enugu nation topping the listing with 26, 12 and 12 candidates respectively.
In the meantime, the number of suspects has risen to 195 with Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Kano and Kaduna states leading with 28, 16, 15, 15 and 15 instances respectively.
The offenses listed towards the applicants covered; exam via proxy, try and cheat, forceful front, tampering with examination files, smuggling of mobile telephones into the examination halls among others.
Other states on the listing of malpractices covered; Abia, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Ondo, Oyo, and Osun.
The JAMB Head of Media, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said in an interview with our correspondent that the arrested applicants were with the police and arraignment had started.
He said, “They (the applicants) are with the police. So the police will prosecute them. We don’t have prosecuting powers. When the police begin prosecution, they definitely get throughout to us. Maximum of them have even been arraigned. Whilst the arraignment is concluded, we are able to come up with a comprehensive record. Whilst we get to a degree that is essential for anyone to understand, we are able to allow you to recognize. But a number of them have already been arraigned via the police.”
The PUNCH reports that approximately 1.9million applicants sat for the 2020 UTME which held from Saturday, March 14, to Sunday, March 22 throughout 666 computer-primarily based test centres nationwide.
The board had mentioned last week Thursday that notwithstanding the release of the 2020 UTME outcomes, it might review all of the near Circuit tv pictures and other established technical gadgets for possible exam misconduct.
“As a part of its way of life, the board would now not hesitate to withdraw the outcomes of applicants found to have perpetrated any form of examination malpractice,” JAMB said.
