Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has said the use of National Identification Number (NIN) as a mandatory prerequisite for the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) registration, was primarily to checkmate examination malpractices and aid national security.
Oloyede, who made this known on Friday in Abuja during a virtual meeting held with CBT owners, zonal directors, zone coordinators, telecommunication service providers, and technical advisers nationwide, said the directive was issued by the Minister of Education.
While noting that identification was key to sanitising the system, he warned that no JAMB accredited CBT centre was allowed to serve as NIN enrollment agent with NIMC for the period of UTME registration and examinations.
He said: “We don’t even require the name of the candidate, we just want the NIN, we will then do the needful to pull the data of the candidate and the process will go on from there.
“It is for security reasons; for us at our small level it helps us to avoid impersonation, but there is a bigger picture of insecurity in the country and we know that many of these problems we have are because we have identification problem, we cannot identify every citizen, where he is and what he is doing.
“Government is trying to ensure that we have some strategy for improving the security system and of course if those who are coming into the tertiary institution are exposed to this basic civil responsibility, it will be good to develop a culture of accountability because accountability starts from being identified.”
Oloyede, who noted that candidates must make use of accessible SIM cards which have never been used for UTME registration, said talks were ongoing with the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy to grant a conditioned waiver to an estimated 20 percent of candidates without SIM cards.
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“We have told the National Communication Commission (NCC), approached the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and we are hopeful that we will be granted waiver with of course, conditionalities which we must ensure the candidates meet.
“Not all the candidates are without SIM, 80 percent of the candidates already have their number, we are talking of the 20 percent and if we are fortunate enough to secure the waiver of the minister through the NCC, we will go ahead to make sure there is full compliance to the conditionalities because it is in our interest as a nation that those things that are put in place should be allowed to protect all of us.”
, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has said the use of National Identification Number (NIN)...){kind=link}