By Gabriel Dike
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has warned candidates, who desire to take the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to create their profiles and proceed to complete their registration as the sale of ePINs will close on Tuesday, February 14.
Sale of 2023 UTME commenced on Saturday, January 14, 2023, and is set to close on Tuesday, February 14, 2023.
The board has noticed a drop in the number of candidates at registration centres and hope there will not be any late surge as no extension whatsoever will be countenanced.
It warned the prospective candidates to note that the UTME calendar is planned in such a way as to create a window for other examination bodies to also perform their statutory roles.
According to the board, it is expedient to remind prospective candidates to take advantage of the near empty registration centres to register now rather than wait till the last minute to mount undue pressure on the system.
JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, has assured the board would continue to monitor the exercise physically and remotely.
Oloyede, who was in Kano, called on Nigerians to report any illegalities to the board or security agencies if any vendor asked them to pay anything above the prescribed fee or if a centre asked for payment before registering candidates.
He advised candidates to be conscious of extant registration guidelines, which require that only their fingers should be captured for biometric verification.
The JAMB boss said the candidates are to note that addition of any other finger(s) by other individuals would jeopardise their chances of sitting for the examination and also lead to prosecution as collaborators in identity theft.
The registrar said in case of difficulty in capturing any of the fingers of a candidate, the board requires the registration officer to forward appropriate report to the national headquarters in Abuja.
The board also announced it would, in conjunction with the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and other relevant agencies, continue to monitor the registration exercise across the country with a view to ensuring Nigerians, who desire to participate in the exercise are not exploited, frustrated or misled into mutilating their data.
The board has registered 665,275 candidates in the last three weeks out of which 148,262 indicated interest to write Mock examination while 517, 013 registered without the examination.