JAMB uncovers 1m. illegal institutional admissions conducted between 2017 and 2020

Tayo afolabi

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has uncovered one million illegal institutional admissions conducted outside the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) between 2017 and 2020.

The academic body in a statement issued by JAMB’s Head of Media and Protocol, Fabian Benjamin, blamed the inability of some candidates to obtain their admission letters which would qualify them to proceed on the one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps or obtain exemption letters on the illegal admissions.

The board said this phenomenon was especially true of products of undisclosed illegal institutional admissions

The statement said: “The series of complaints emanated from the frustrations of these set of students who are expressing anger at the lack of formal recognition of their degrees by relevant authorities.

“Consequently, the Hon. Minister of Education, Mall. Adamu Adamu had out of compassion, approved a final batch of these underhand admissions.

“It should be recalled that based on that act of magnanimity, the Board had placed relevant advertisements in three national dailies (Blueprint, Guardian and Vanguard) of 24th November 2021. The same notice was featured on the Board’s website coupled with an easy-to-use Advisory issued to all institutions of higher learning to guide them on how these candidates could be redeemed.

“Based on available data close to one million undisclosed illegal institutional admissions were disclosed so far. What is, however, surprising is that, as of today, less than 5% of such students’ details had been uploaded on the Board portal by the institutions as required.

“It is even more egregious to note that even among the few that had been uploaded by the schools on the Board portal many of the schools had not correctly keyed in their details.

“The Board, therefore, uses this medium to appeal to institutions to immediately upload appropriately the matriculation numbers, names, disciplines, year of graduation and other necessary details of the candidates for the Board to process the candidates’ condonement applications.

“The Board reiterates that it is incumbent on the institutions to correctly key in the details of the candidates as illustrated on the advisory issued to institutions, advertised in the dailies and on the Board’s website for the prompt processing of candidates retroactive admission letters for them to obtain necessary clearance for their hitherto underhand admissions.”