A leader of students who protested on Wednesday against the workings of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which randomly allocates university applicants to separate institutions, has alleged that the program’s registrar, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, has an agreement with private universities to selectively divert candidates to them against the will of the applicants themselves.
A leader of students who protested on Wednesday against the workings of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which randomly allocates candidates to separate institutions, has alleged that the program’s registrar, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, has an agreement with private universities to selectively divert candidates to them against the will of the applicants themselves.
The bold allegation came from Dotun Sodunke, the President of the Association of Tutorial Center Operators (ATCO).
Speaking to journalists at the protest, which took place on the campus of University of Lagos (UNILAG), Mr. Sodunke emphasized that private universities paid Professor Ojerinde to help them divert candidates from the last JAMB tests for them to have student populations in their less patronized institutions.
He called on the federal government to investigate the board and its registrar. "A series of frauds have been going on in JAMB, and this is the right time to end it because I trust President Muhammadu Buhari to do justice to this," he declared.
The tutor alleged that the board has deceived and defrauded candidates of the JAMB examination for several years.
The selling of "Change of Institutions and Courses" forms is a particularly questionable practice, Mr. Sodunke said. "Since JAMB knew it would still randomly allocate the candidates to institutions by its own discretion, why did it in the first place sell forms for them to change their choices, [only] to later allocate them at will to non-chosen institutions?" he posed.
A horde of post-JAMB candidates and some parents also came to the UNILAG campus, protesting decisions of the board to change their institutions, which they said they did not choose.
"Why send my daughter to Maiduguri where Shekau will probably be the Vice Chancellor, when she actually chose UNILAG?" one parent complained.