The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has delisted 22 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres for allegedly defrauding 11,823 candidates of N59 million.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, who announced this on Thursday in Abuja, said any centre that shared the same ownership with the blacklisted centres would be suspended from the board’s activities.
Oloyede, who spoke at a meeting with representatives of the affected centres, said the CBT centres allegedly carried out the fraud by charging more than N200 as service charge to make corrections on a profile as well as bypass One-Time Password (OTP) required of candidates to make such changes.
The Registrar said the board had concrete proof of the infractions as it made undercover payments to the centres in order to detect the fraud that was being perpetrated by operators of the centres.
“The purpose of calling this meeting is to interact with 22 of you (institutions) that have grossly violated the prescription of the board, particularly during COVID-19, and those who have done things they are not expected to do, thereby endangering the lives of candidates that they were supposed to protect.
“Not only that, we have discovered that the 22 of you have also defrauded candidates by collecting from them more than you are expected to collect and doing certain things that would bypass the normal process and procedure.
“Some of you were collecting N3,000 and N5,000 from candidates (for an amount that supposed to be N200 as service charge for the centre). What you have collected is over N59 million.
“We have invited you to this meeting to hear you out and let the public know how some of you are engaging in criminal activities in the process of registering candidates. There are some of you that can even be classified as certified fraudsters,” he said.
The Registrar advised the affected candidates to change their passwords to avoid further damage, following exposure of the secret code to operators of the (now) blacklisted CBT centres.
A representative of Duntro CBT centre, David Ugochukwu, blamed the illegal act on his technical workers, saying they had been sacked from the organization.
The affected CBT centres are: Bright Stars, Aba, Abia State, 68 candidates; Flourish Computer Centre, Akwa Ibom State, 105; Ibom-E-Library, Akwa Ibom, 12; Chukwuemeka Odumegwu University, Igbariam, 661. Anambra State: Deacons Digital Solutions Limited, 96; Federal Poly, Oko, 314, Mega Dataview, Onitsha, 733.
Others are: Bayelsa State: Linnet Paul Innovative Institute, Yenagoa, 3,435; Niger Delta University, 1,200; Edo State: Diict, Benin, 81; Gateway Edutech, Benin, 10; Gifted Hands Science and Technology, Benin, 223; NABTEB ICT Training Centre, Benin, 291; Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa, 670 and Supreme ICT Foundation, Benin, 22.
The list also includes Enugu State: Elco ICT, Nsukka, 538; Peaceland And Stalwart Solutions, Enugu, 554; Union ICT, 773; Kaduna State: Time Online ICT, Sabon Tasha, Kaduna, 67: Lagos State: Duntro High School, Surulere, 21; Elite BusinessConsult, Ikorodu, 218 and Rivers State: Ave Maria international Academy, Rumuodara, Port Harcourt, 1731.