Some gullible candidates writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, conducted by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, are reported to be buying fake question papers.
They are said to be paying as much as N200,000 to obtain the fake questions from organised syndicates.
According to the Nation, the registrar of JAMB, Is-haq Oloyede, has confirmed the scam.
He has warned candidates against falling victims to the fraudsters, who claim to have prepared answers to the examination questions being conducted by JAMB.
He spoke during the monitoring of the ongoing UTME examination with minister of state for education Prof. Anthony Anwukah in Abuja.
Oloyede and Anwukah visited Digital Bridge Institute, Global Learning Institute, Sascon International School and the JAMB CBT Centre in Kogo, Bwari.
“Some of the fraudulent persons simply take past question papers and redesign them by changing the date and then sell same to gullible candidates, who might not have prepared well for the examination,” he said.
He said some candidates fell for the trick, paying huge sums of money to purchase the question papers only to be disappointed on the examination day.
“This morning, somebody sent me questions. They call it Orijo and he bought it for N200,000 and when I saw it, it was our questions in 1984 and he just put 2017 on it and started selling it and people are buying it.
“So, if people are corrupt, I won’t have any sympathy if they are duped by corrupt people like themselves. They are just being wise. They went into the past questions of JAMB and just changed the heading.
“Somebody else called me and said he had all my questions. I asked him to send them to me and when I checked, I just laughed because none of that was in our questions. What people are just doing, they are making money because people are gullible.
“We appeal to people to do things according to the rules. No cutting of corners will work with JAMB and that is why many of the candidates who fell for such blackmail are disappointed.”
The results of the examination conducted on Saturday have been released, he said.
Oloyede expressed satisfaction in the smooth conduct of the examination so far, but decried the poor performance of students from the results of Saturday’s examination.
“The result of UTME has come out and the performance is not too bad. But we are sure that this is the performance now rather than thinking you can get result one way or the other.”
No fewer than 440,000 candidates out of the 1.7 million that registered for the UTME sat for the examination on the second day.
