Hundreds of students who wrote 2016 Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination, UTME on Tuesday stormed the Lagos State governor’s
office and the state House of Assembly complex at Alausa- Ikeja, Lagos to
protest alleged manipulations in the conduct of the examination this year.
The
protesting ‘Jambites’ equally demanded the removal of the registrar of the
Joint Admissions Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, over what they
called fraudulent acts by the registrar. The protesters, who were led by a
group called Concerned Parents and Education Stakeholders, displayed placards
with various inscriptions such as:
“All we are saying, give us our mark’, ‘Dibu
must go’, ‘The only stumbling block in education progress, JAMB’, ‘The
professor of test and management has outlived his usefulness.” The protesters
also shared leaflets, with one having Ojerinde’s picture, captioned, ‘Anti-
change Agent.’ In an interview with journalists during the protest, National
President of Association of Tutorial Schools in Nigeria, Mr. Shodunke
Olutodotun, lamented that over 10,000 candidates missed 2016 UTME in Lagos,
while others had their marks deducted due to clandestine motive by the registrar.
He said: “This year UTME is still on-going and is to
be concluded today. We have a man called Prof. Dibu Ojerinde. This man has
outlived his usefulness in JAMB. He seems to be more powerful than Jonathan
government and now President Muhammadu Buhari. “This is a fraudulent man, who
the Minister of Finance came out to say N16 billion is missing in the report he
sent to the senate. Also, the Minister of Education, Adamu has been complaining
about the CBT. “A lot of them got results before they sat for the exam; only
for them to see another result. Forty marks were added for them, which others
did not enjoy. But others claimed 150 marks was deducted.”
The protesters, therefore, demanded that their real
marks be restored while those who wished to re-sit should be given the
opportunity to do so, otherwise the entire examination should be cancelled. The
students also appealed to Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode and House of
Assembly Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, to prevail on Federal Ministry of Education
and other concerned authorities to call JAMB to order and remove Ojerinde.
According to Oladotun, “Dibu is marking down candidates to pave way for private
universities. He adds and deducts candidates’ scores at his discretion. He
changed exam venue without proper notification, which led to 10,000 candidates
missing the UTME exam.’’ However, at press time, the protesters were yet to be
attended to by representatives of the governor or Speaker as they were out on
official engagements.
Nationalmirroronline.net
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