By Unini Chioma 

The Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, has raised alarm over how some parents impersonate to sit examinations for their children.

 The JAMB Registrar made the comment while fielding questions from newsmen shortly after inspecting a JAMB centre in Kaduna on Wednesday, saying the father was recently arrested for sitting the exam for his son.

Oloyede said this had become a major challenge for the board, saying those who engaged in cheating should know that it does not pay.

He also explained that technology was helping the board to check such people and get them arrested.

“Across the country, most of the problem we have is impersonation. We have a case of a father impersonating his son, writing examination for the son and I wonder, are you not destroying your son’s future?

“Of course, two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell. This happened definitely not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.

“So, it is largely cases of impersonation, but we are ahead of them. We are just picking them up like chicken now, because the facilities are there for us to see what they are doing and to pick them up. And even those that we have left for research purposes, they will see what will happen after the exams,” he said.

The Registrar added that there were cases of people with two NINs which had defeated the purpose of the identity verification.

He said the board would take the matter up with the NIMC.

The JAMB Registrar also used the opportunity to inform those that have missed the exam, for reasons not caused by the Examination body, to forget about it, saying that JAMB cannot spend tens of millions of the nation’s resources to reorganize a session for few candidates who missed the exams due to their personal recklessness.

He also warned that UTME is not a school-based examination, as such, JAMB would not be responsible for any failure caused to candidates who registered through their secondary schools who either deliberately or due to logistics challenges could not get the candidates to meet their requirements.

The JAMB Registrar reiterated that UTME results cannot be allowed to be valid for more than a year, describing it is a ranking examination, and not an achievement examination that can be kept for a long time.