JAMB to investigate candidates’ inability to undertake biometric verification

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board ( JAMB ) has said it will investigate reported cases of some candidates who were unable to undertake the biometric verification process during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which commenced on Thursday.

This disclosure was made by Fabian Benjamin, the board’s head of media and publicity, in a chat with NAN on Friday in Abuja.

Benjamin also said that the release of the results would be delayed as the board was taking time to process before releasing them, to avoid multiple cancellations.

As regards to the biometric verification, Benjamin said that the board was scrutinizing all reported cases and would come to a decision soon.

“We will look at the cases brought before us to know if they are actual challenges or part of malpractice,” said the JAMB spokesman.

“This is because we discovered that some candidates have done something, they intend to take advantage of the biometric verification challenge as an excuse, so we need to ascertain the genuineness of these cases.

“I assure you we are looking at it and would do something.”

NAN reports that the 2018/2019 UTME which commenced nationwide on Thursday, has not been totally hitch-free as some candidates complained they could not be verified through the biometric process, either at the beginning or end of the exercise.

However, there are also reports that some centres recorded smooth conduct of the process.

Over 1.8 million candidates who registered for the exercise are expected to sit for the examination from April 11 to April 15 in the 698 computer-based tests (CBT) centres across the country.