On a motion made by Senator Onyeka Nwebonyi of Ebonyi North, the Senate on Wednesday decided to look into claims of admission racketeering in the country's colleges.
Nwebonyi said that certain members of the university staff colluded with JAMB authorities to carry out unethical acts, citing the difficulties one Chinyere Ekwe had being admitted to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).
She claimed that because JAMB was a well-known organization, Senate President Godswill Akpabio was prompted to demand a fair hearing.
However, JAMB's Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, praised the Senate for allowing the exam organization to defend itself over the matter while responding to the development during the Board's Customer Service Week in Abuja.
Something occurred in the Senate when a resolution was made on the Senate floor to address allegations of admission racketeering connivance between JAMB and certain higher education institutions.
However, there is always a good aspect to anything that seems unpleasant. The Senate President stated that due to JAMB's honesty, JAMB has to be heard.
"I want to express our gratitude to the Senate as a whole and to the Senate President in particular for the insightful advice. We truly appreciate them allowing us the chance to be heard, and we thank them for that," he stated.
Oloyede clarified the main points of the accusation by stating that the candidate in question took the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and received a score of 291.
He claimed that the girl had applied to study medicine and surgery at UNN, and that the university had ranked her application for the medical program in 241 place after taking into account all of her previous academic achievements, including her post-UTME score.
"After realizing the ranking, this woman did not ask to alter her course. However, the university suggested that she switch to medical laboratory, and she accepted the offer in writing.
The university admitted more students that year than was authorized, so we knew she could not have been accepted for medicine when the institution suggested her for entrance to the medical laboratory, he added.
Oloyede noted that although the university allowed more applications than its allotted departmental quota in the Medical Laboratory and was instructed to lower the number, it was later found that numerous other applicants who were admitted "under the table" (illegally) had higher test results than she did.
"The woman has not received a letter of consent from JAMB for either medical laboratory work or medicine as of yet. Furthermore, Oloyede stated, "If she is working in the medical laboratory, it is under a contract between her and the organization.
The head of JAMB stated: "The university went above and beyond that in March of this year based on the arrangement of the Honorable Minister that we excused some admissions fraud from 2017 to 2020."