Scores of candidates of the last Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), who stormed the Lagos State House of Assembly Tuesday to protest alleged maltreatment by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in the examination, threw stones at the security gate and personnel manning the gate in the Assembly to ventilate their anger after waiting for hours without being attended to by the lawmakers.
Some of the students, who were angered by the failure of the speaker or any lawmaker in the Assembly to attend to them in time were molested and arrested by members of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), who had been mobilised to prevent them from entering the Assembly premises.
The students sang solidarity songs to register their anger with the authority of JAMB and the Assembly.
The over 200 candidates, who wrote this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination called for the removal of Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, Director of Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) over the alleged mismanagement of UTME examination during the protest to the Assembly.
One of the affected candidates, Okelola Samson said that he read rigorously for the examination, but that JAMB gave him 170 marks which was against his expectation.
According to him, for the past two weeks, JAMB has been sending results that was not in tandem with our expectations. We expected good result but we were disappointed at the management with the series of marks they were sending to our phones.
“I am sure 170 was not my score and I am using this opportunity to call on the House of Assembly and the Federal Government to investigate this hiccup with JAMB,” he pleaded.
It was gathered that other protesting candidates shouted at the frontage of the Assembly that Prof. Dibu must leave as the Director of JAMB.
Another candidate, Adebisi Shonupe also shared his experience, and said that all the efforts put into the exam proved abortive with the action of JAMB.
“Dibu is marking down candidates to pave way for private universities and also deduct the scores of the candidates at his own discretion. We also received some of our results before we write the exam,” the candidates said.
According to them, JAMB changed exam venues without proper notification and over 10,000 candidates missed the UTME exam. He is also selling change of institution and change of course e-card, while the exam was still in progress.
The inscription on the placards included: “My system went off and nothing was done. Kilode! You all have children.”
The Director of Next Level Academy, Abayomi Arowolo, who was an instructor to the candidates, said what JAMB did was injustice.
“After the candidates finished the examinations, JAMB added 40 marks to their scores and later removed it from the candidates’ scores. Some of the candidates are still writing the exam, so the Commission should be called to order.”
The House of Assembly had not attended to the students as the time of filling this story.
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