The Office of the Lagos State Governor in Alausa, Ikeja and the Lagos State Assembly Complex yesterday played host to hundreds of admission seekers and their parents who used the medium to express their dissatisfaction on the 2016 Joint Admission Matriculation Board, JAMB’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME results.
The protesters alleged that the examination was manipulated and thus called for its cancellation and subsequent removal of the Admission Board’s Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde.
Describing the exam as a “big sham”, protesters argued that there were gross irregularities in the process, conduct and final results produced by the examination body.
Some other protesters alleges that the examination body doctored candidates’ results by lowering it deliberately while arbitrarily awarding marks to many candidates.
The group of protesters led by the Concerned Parents and Education Stakeholders group were at the venue of the protest for hours with several placards to express their dissatisfaction.
One of the candidates expressed her regret at the examination body’s conduct as she claimed to have received three different results from the examination body.
Maryam Animashaun who sat for the exam at College of Education, Oro, Kwara State, said, “I am confused. I do not know what to do now. The first alert I received on the telephone from the board with regard to the examination showed that I scored 218. The second alert read 186, while the third one read 286.
“The surprising thing now is that I cannot print any of the results. On the website, the board claimed that I did not sit for the examination. Meanwhile, I sat for English, Government, Economics and Literature-in-English.”
Another candidate, Kalasuwe Adeola said; “I am sure JAMB did not mark this year’s UTME. If it did, why did they issue me the same result I obtained last year? In my printed result for this year, it was written 2015/2016 instead of 2016/2017. I sat for this year’s examination at the Bachel Model College, Lagos, on March 9. Unlike other candidates, I did not have any issue with my system during the examination.”
Addressing the issue, the National President of the Association of Tutorial Schools in Nigeria, Mr Shodunke Olutodotun said; “This year’s UTME will soon be concluded. We have a man called Prof. Dibu Ojerinde. This man has outlived his usefulness in JAMB. He seems to be more powerful than the country’s president.
“The protesters are the victims; their destinies are being finished by Dibu. Most of the protesters that had their exam in Delta State had the exam in a shrine. A lot of them got results before they sat for the exam.
“We are appealing to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, to send signal to Abuja to stop UTME. If they don’t do that, we will go to Abuja.
“How will someone sit for Physics, Chemistry, Biology and the next thing he sees are Economics, Commerce and Government?” he queried.