JAMB hands over 180 candidates to police

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has handed over 180 candidates in the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) to the police for prosecution over alleged involvement in examination malpractices.

It said 70 per cent of the candidates have been arraigned, while others are undergoing investigation.

JAMB’s Head of Media and Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this yesterday in an interview in Abuja.

He said the candidates were arrested across the country during the conduct of the examination that ended last Saturday.

The board had on Sunday published the names and states of some of the candidates fingered in examination malpractices in its weekly bulletin, with Imo, Anambra and Enugu states topping the list with 26, 12 and 12 candidates.

Some of their offences included: examination by proxy, attempt to cheat, forceful entrance, tampering with examination documents, smuggling of phones into the examination halls, among others.

Other states on the list of malpractices are Abia, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Ondo, Oyo and Osun.

The JAMB spokesman said that the arrested candidates were with the police, adding that their arraignment had started.

He said: “They are about 180 candidates. We arrested them all over the country. We are harmonising the list and following up on it to ensure that all of them are arraigned.

“Most of them have been arraigned already. Seventy per cent of them have been arraigned already.

“They (the candidates) are with the police. So the police will prosecute them. We don’t have prosecuting powers. When the police start prosecution, they will certainly get across to us.

“Most of them have even been arraigned. When the arraignment is concluded, we will give you a comprehensive report..

“When we get to a stage that is important for everyone to know, we will let you know. But some of them have already been arraigned by the police.”