Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has disclosed that 445,081 candidates have registered for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Oloyede stated that JAMB's target this year is 1.8 million and that there will not be an extension while observing the registration process in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, on Monday.
JAMB is going to create a multi-million naira zonal office for Kwara, which has been included in its budget, he added.
The registrar said, “We do not expect any extension. As of yesterday (Sunday), 445,081 people have registered out of the 1.8m candidates that we are expecting.
“We have gone halfway but you know some of our people will come at the last hour. But there is no room for an extension because we have made provisions for the registration of 100,000 candidates per day and we are doing 60,000 daily now.
“So the candidates are the ones not coming up. For those who want to write a mock, the space is almost filled and when that happens, we don’t want to turn the mock into another examination. When the numbers are up to a quarter of the candidates, we will stop it. Now, we have about 144,000 who have indicated interest to write the mock”, he added.
Speaking on the monitoring exercise, Oloyede said, “I have discovered that in one of the centres, instead of buying enough cameras to capture the students, the owner bought only one with a possibility of missing the pictures with the names of the candidates. That is very detrimental to the candidates and we have to suspend the centre for registration or conduct of the exams until the proper thing is done.
“Elsewhere, we have had to make a few corrections but overall, it has been excellent because there has not been a single case of extortion. That is very gladdening to us as the purpose is to ensure that candidates have confidence in the system. We won’t allow any individual to pervert or divert the system.”
He said he doesn’t need to appeal to any centre ‘because they know we don’t have any sacred cows. Once they cross the line, they will be dealt with.’
“We have been fair to them and that is why we on our own raised the fee of registration point from N700 to N1000 because of the price of diesel and we collect it on their behalf including the mock fee and pay the centres which amount to about N100m. We will continue to make the business profitable for the CBT centres but will not allow them to exploit the candidates,” Oloyede said.
The JAMB boss said the inspection is to ensure that the rules and regulations for registration are complied with “because we have to see what is going on and convinced our people that we don’t need to cut corners”.