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Wednesday 16 March 2016

UTME Candidates Protest in Lagos, Allege Exam Manipulation


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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