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In a bid to ensure transparency and compliance to standards in the admission process, the Senate has set up a panel to investigate allegations of admission racketeering in higher institutions across the country. The panel was also asked to probe the alleged involvement of some employees of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in the saga.
The move was sequel to a motion titled “Urgent need to curtail the practice of undisclosed admissions and other unwholesome practices by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB),” sponsored by Senator Onyeka Nwebonyi, representing Ebonyi North in the National Assembly.
Nwebonyi had accused the staff of tertiary institutions of colluding with JAMB officials to issue uncertified admissions to candidates. The Senator alleged that candidates pay money before they are offered admissions to study competitive courses such as Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy, Law, Engineering and Nursing. He equally accused the authorities of some higher institutions of using admission to exploit and frustrate intelligent students.
According to Nwebonyi, “The provisional admission practice is being used as a malicious tool to exploit and frustrate intelligent young Nigerians, who are children and wards of ordinary people who seek admission into Nigerian universities.”
“These children who bestirred themselves to make good grades in their UTME are being made to pay the necessary fees, undergo the rigorous processes of registration and matriculation, resume lectures, and sometimes, even take semester examinations, only to be transferred to other less competitive courses by the universities in connivance with JAMB without any plausible explanation, thereby destroying their ambitions in the course of the unholy act of course swap,” the Senator stated.
Specifically, Nwebonyi listed the case of one Miss Chinyere Ekwe and 290 others who were admitted to study Medicine and Surgery at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) but had their admissions truncated on the order of JAMB for no plausible reason, after they had completed the admission processes and resumed lectures.
In order to give fair hearing to the parties involved in the matter, the Senate has directed its committees on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND as well as Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to probe the allegation of admission fraud in tertiary institutions.
We commend the Senate for the bold initiative to unravel admission fraud in the varsities. It is laudable that JAMB has agreed to cooperate with the lawmakers in the investigation. The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the board, Ishaq Oloyede, said the proposed probe by the legislators would give the body the opportunity to state its side of the story on the allegations levelled against it. The authorities of the UNN have equally welcomed the probe.
Sanitizing the admission process in the nation’s tertiary institutions will enhance the quality of their graduates.
In 2022, JAMB released the list of varsities that conducted illegal admissions in 2017 and 2020. According to the board, a total of 58,698 fake admissions were conducted by 10 institutions during the period. The JAMB registrar blamed the anomaly on some institutions favouring candidates based on personal relationships with top government officials, among other reasons.
JAMB is the statutory body charged with conducting the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for admissions into all Nigerian universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and other tertiary institutions. Any other admission outside its approval and without the official involvement of the receiving institution is considered fake.
We urge the Senate to thoroughly investigate the matter and fish out those involved in the racket. There should be no cover up in the probe. Any official of the board or institution involved in the admission fraud should be dealt with, according to the laws of the land. Beyond this probe, the inquest should be extended to previous admission infractions in the higher institutions. While the findings of the panel should be made public, those indicted must be prosecuted. Above all, members of the probe panel should be fair to all the parties involved in the matter.
