A Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) official, on Saturday, cautioned candidates sitting for the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to be careful with their properties.
Mr Bukky Ojuade, a JAMB official at the New Ocean Comprehensive High School, Ayobo, Lagos, who gave the warning, said that a candidate (name withheld) lost his phone on Saturday.
He told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) the candidate who sat for the first session of the examination complained that he could not recognise the person he gave his phone to before the screening began.
“The candidate gave his phone to someone at the gate because he thought the man was a staff of the school.
“After the examination he couldn’t find the man and couldn’t even recognise him,” Ojuade said.
He advised candidates to keep their properties, especially mobile phones at home or where it can be properly monitored by the JAMB officials.
“My best advice is that they should keep their properties at home or where it can be monitored by the officials, otherwise they will be accountable to whatever happens”
He also advised candidates to arrive early to their examination centres as no opportunity would be given to candidates who miss their scheduled time.
“Any candidate who is serious should leave home as early as possible, because once they miss the exam, they have to wait till next year to get another form,” he said.
NAN reports that a total of 10 candidates missed their opportunity of taking part in the examination at the centre.
Ojuade also said that the examination was hitch-free; adding that JAMB had improved in its operations as far as writing the examinations was concerned.
Mrs Oyelola Balogun, the technical officer at the centre, said there were no technical or network issues during the course of the examination.
“We had three sessions and everything went fine. We didn’t even experience any network or technical issues, we thank God for that,” she said.
Adeoye Olabisi, a candidate, who wrote for the first time at the centre, also commended the efforts of JAMB on the smooth running of the examination.
“I really commend the efforts of JAMB for the smooth running of the examination. They made sure we followed the instructions and I was able to finish early,” she said.
The ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) going smoothly in nearly all the examination centres in some states monitored by NAN.
The Bauchi state coordinator of JAMB, Mr Usman Zage told NAN that the ongoing UTME has been hitch free in nearly all the exam centres in the state since its commencement on Friday.
Zage said that there are enough computer facilities for the candidates because the exam is computer based.
Speaking on the challenges so far, Zage said the major challenge is power supply which has been resolved.
“The challenge so far is usually about power supply, because PHCN can interrupt the power supply anytime.
So, we rely solely on generator and other alternative power sources like the UPS, inverter and Solar power, in case the generator develops fault or fails,” he said
Zage also said enough security agents were in all the centres across the state, ranging from the Police, Civil Defence and DSS.
Corroborating the coordinator’s submission, one of the candidates Ifeoluwa Asogba said there is maximum security in her centre.
“Before we went in to the exam hall, we had to go through mass security screening where our phones, pens, wrist watch and other things not meant for the examination were collected by them.
“Getting to the hall, computers were available and everything was on and ready without any network problems,” she said.
Another candidate, Kamal Sani, said the exam went well and that he encountered no network problem at all. (NAN)