Standup9ja: JAMB, ‘How we wrote UTME at midnight in Abuja’
Frustrated candidates for JAMB at Victory Institute of
Theology and Education, Yangoji, Kwali, being conveyed to centres at Gwagwalada
and Anagada for the Computer Based Test on Tuesday.
Some candidates writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination (UTME) sat for the exam at midnight on Monday at certain Computer
Based Testing centres in Abuja.
Some of the candidates had to be taken to other centres on
Monday and Tuesday due to electricity failure and technical hitches at the
centre they were earlier billed to write the exam.
Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has, however,
sympathised with the candidates while it attributed the challenges to the
‘Nigerian factor’.
At Victory Institute of Theology and Education, Yangoji, the
exam was only held on Saturday therefore candidates scheduled for the centre
were taken to centres in Gwagwalada and Anagada communities.
Candidates at Blue Ocean Technology, Dutsen Baupma, Bwari Area
Council, said they waited for more than 10 hours before they could write the
exam due to poor internet connection and glitches from the computers on Monday.
A candidate who pleaded anonymity said candidates scheduled
to sit at 7:00a.m. at Blue Ocean centre left the exam hall at about 6:00p.m. on
Monday.
“I was scheduled for 2:00:p.m., I entered the hall at about
7:00p.m. and left at about 10:00p.m,” she said.
Another candidate at Yangoji said she finished writing the
exam at midnight and had to go home with a friend whose parent accompanied her
to the centre.
The candidate who also pleaded anonymity said she was
hungry, thirsty and tired before she wrote the exam. She was unable to reach
her parent because she dropped her handset at home.
Charles Adebowale, a guardian said nobody was providing them
with information on what was happening at the centre.
“I can’t say what is happening we just saw candidates being
taken into buses,” he said.
Mrs. Nana Abdulrahman said the situation would demoralise
the children and likely affect their performances.
Mrs. Abdulrahman who was at the centre with her 16-year-old
son said the officials at the centre did not inform the parents who were
outside the compound before directing the children into the buses.
“I don’t really know
what was going on. With the information on the slip given to my son we were
told to come here for the exam so I was surprised when they were moving them to
another place,” she said.
She said the children were subjected to inhumane treatment,
“some of them, their parents just gave them transport fare and they do not know
about the relocation to another centre.
“If they had to change the centre why can’t JAMB inform the
parents earlier? Since Saturday nobody has written exam here, so what is going
on? Why are they moving them thereby risking their lives and demoralising
them?” she queried.
JAMB spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said the owner of
the centre had shown JAMB two generators but both broke down.
“We don’t want any candidate to miss the exam and what we
did was to move them to another centre. There was a challenge and the most
important thing was we were able to move quickly to ensure that every candidate
scheduled for the exam wrote the exam,” he said.
He sympathised with the candidates adding that they wrote
the exam at such time because it was a crisis situation.
“It is not that JAMB could not perform but the Nigerian
factor. Somebody who claimed to have something did not do what he ought to do
from his own end,” he said.
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