Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, in October announced that it would no longer register candidates who do not have the National Identity Number, NIN for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

That candidate sitting for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, will need to register with their National Identity Number, NIN.

This follows the collaboration between the Board and the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, to harmonize data of UTME candidates to reduce cost of registration and check underage registration.

According to Jamb Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, the introduction of NIN to UTME was in line with the directive of the Federal government that NIMC should be the primary data collection center.

Professor Oloyede explained that this strategy would work against all forms of registration infractions, which is the foundation of examination malpractices.

Part of the measures to reduce examination malpractice by the board is that henceforth all school based centers will not be allowed to participate in next year’s jamb exams, but will be considered if the computer based centers belong to the secondary schools while the principal of the schools will be responsible as administrators of the CBT centers.

As a result of challenges faced by candidates in obtaining the NIN card, the House of Representatives in November asked Jamb to suspend the “no NIN, no JAMB” policy until 2021.

To this end, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Jamb, has suspended the use of the National Identification Number for registration for the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

Registrar of Jamb, Professor Ishaq Oloyede said the move was to provide more time for candidates to get their National Identification Numbers and to address the technical challenges experienced at some centers.

Professor Oloyede asked candidates to disregard the use of NIN for the 2020 registration and strictly comply with other procedures for registration. He however said that jamb will consider the use of NIMC for 2021 exams.

According to the Jamb boss, plans are underway for the provision of a more advanced system that will be more efficient for the exercise.

Before the suspension, thousands of prospective jamb candidates besieged NIMC offices across the Federation to get the registration done.

All over the offices, candidates trooped in and lamented the stress they had to go through at NIMC offices with few computers and inadequate manpower.

It is important that necessary machineries are put in place to prevent the loss of time and energy in the process of enrolling for the exercise.

Government should also ensure that the National Identity Management Commission provides logistics for the smooth running of the exercise.

The country currently faces daunting security challenges and requires effort to tame the menace.

A major challenge is absence of reliable statistics of citizens.

Just like the Bank Verification Number, BVN which is pivotal in addressing financial fraud, NIN is pivotal to national security.

Although, Jamb has suspended the registration, it behooves all Nigerians to see the registration as a price to pay to live in a more secured technological driven society.

Titilayo Kupoliyi 

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