Candidates, parents protest, demand cancellation of 2016 UTME

Hundreds of admission seekers to the nation’s
tertiary institutions and their parents on Tuesday
stormed the Lagos State Governor’s Office in
Alausa, Ikeja, and the state Assembly complex
to protest against alleged manipulation of the
2016 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
The protesters demanded the cancellation of
the exams and the removal of the Registrar of
the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board, Prof.
Dibu Ojerinde.

The protesters, who faulted the conduct of the
examination, described the exercise as a “big
sham.”

The examination, conducted by JAMB, they
alleged, was fraught with irregularities.
The examination, which started on February 27,
will end on March 19.

While some of the candidates alleged that the
board deliberately lowered their scores, some
claimed that it arbitrarily awarded marks to
many candidates.

The protesters, led by a group under the aegis
of Concerned Parents and Education
Stakeholders, displayed placards with
inscriptions such as, ‘All we are saying give us
our mark’, ‘Dibu must go; the only stumbling
block in education progress’, ‘The Joint
Admission and Manipulation Board, give us our
real results’, and ‘The professor of test and
management has outlived his usefulness’,
among others.

The protesters, who occupied the gate of the
Lagos State House of Assembly complex for
many hours, said JAMB and its registrar had
“lost focus on how to conduct a successful
Computer-Based Test in the 21st century.
A candidate, Maryam Animashaun, who
expressed disappointment with the conduct of
the examination, claimed that she received
three different results from JAMB.

Animashaun, who sat for the examination at the
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, who
claimed she scored 220, said she obtained the
same score in 2015.

She 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.”

The National President of the Association of
Tutorial Schools in Nigeria, Mr. Shodunke
Olutodotun, lamented that over 10,000
candidates missed the UTME, while others had
their marks deducted due to irregularities by
JAMB.

“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?”
Describing the exam as a fraud, a parent, Mr.
Bunmi Elujula, urged the Minister of Education,
Mallam Adamu Adamu, to look into the
complaints of the candidates urgently.
Apart from awarding arbitrary scores to
candidates, Elujula said many candidates had
problems with their systems.

He said, “Many candidates were allocated
between 40 and 60 additional marks. What are
the criteria for this arbitrariness? The strange
thing is that JAMB started the CBT two years
ago, why is this year’s exam a big flop? I have
not seen candidates and parents complain this
way about the exam in the past. I plead with
the authorities to look into their grievances.”
But JAMB described the organisers of the
protest as “blackmailers”.
In a statement by its Head of Public Relations,
Dr Fabian Benajmin, the board said some
proprietors, whose examination centres did not
receive accreditation for the test, were behind
the protest.

The statement read in part, “The board had
approved centres provided by these individuals
to be used for the 2016 exercise. Unfortunately,
it could not approve those centres lacking in all
the indices needed for a successful CBT.
“These same proprietors turned around to
organise candidates to protest against our
activities. We are not perfect as an
organisation, but we are working hard to ensure
that Nigerian education is better than it is. We
have taken the risk to do the unthinkable so as
to change the paradigm.

“We will continue to call on Nigerians to give us
the benefits of doubt and with their collective
support; we will give them one of the best CBT
globally. It is no news that the worst CBT is far
better than the best Paper and Pencil Test. At
least, the era of candidates pouring acid on
JAMB officials, bolting with question papers into
the bush and all unthinkable embarrassing acts
are gone"