2018 UTME: JAMB, NSCDC parade two for exam malpractice
Operatives of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC)
have paraded two suspects arrested at a centre in Abuja for alleged
examination malpractice in the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination (UTME).
The Commandant, NSCDC Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, Patrick Ukpen, paraded the suspects in Abuja on Tuesday
He said the suspects were apprehended at Baptist Academy, Karu, Abuja.
He said one of them who is also a candidate was arrested for allegedly going into the examination hall with her mobile phone.
The commandant revealed that the suspect was able to conceal the mobile phone in her underwear and brought it out during the examination.
“We have in our custody today two suspects that were involved in examination malpractice in the ongoing JAMB UTME. Their level of involvement are as follows: A lady whose name is Joy Apkabio, went into the exam hall with a telephone handset and this is against the rules covering the JAMB examination,” Mr Ukpen said
“Upon interrogation, we were also able to arrest her accomplice who is another young man by the name Andrew, who introduced her into the business and was equally involved in sending text messages of supposed answers to the examination she was doing,” he said.
Mr. Ukpen said the lady was arrested by the officers of the NSCDC through the help of CCTV cameras.
“With the use of modern technology; you know the examination centres have CCTV cameras that are sending live transmission of activities that are taking place in the examination hall, and the activities of our men and other JAMB officials who were deployed to the centres. We were able to detect what she was doing and she was immediately arrested,” he said.
According to the commandant, “they are in our custody now and we are going to carry out further investigations regarding their involvement and to know if there are other accomplice, he will equally be traced and arrested and thereafter, they will be prosecuted.”
Meanwhile, one of the suspects, Andrew Etziuzala who hails from Edo
State and is a student of Nassarawa State University, said he has made
the biggest mistake of his life.
“I have made a very big mistake which will not happen again. The painful thing is that it has tarnished my image”, he said
On his part, the Public Relations Officer of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Fabian Benjamin, said the arrest will serve as a deterrent to other candidates.
“Just as the commandant has said, we are doing this not because she has been arrested, we want this to serve as a deterrent to other candidates.”
He said the board was monitoring the coordination of the examination across the nation from its headquarters.
“This particular candidate was spotted from our headquarters, we have made it clear that all our centres are covered by CCTV cameras.
“We got a report that something was happening in Baptist Academy, Karu, and we immediately dispatched a team who went there and got the candidate arrested.We want to sound it very clear that there is no shortcut to success. It is no longer business as usual because you will be spotted if you do anything in the examination hall”, Mr Benjamin said.
He said the female candidate went into the hall with her phone and text messages were sent to her.
“We discovered that the answers were for 1990 JAMB questions, they are not for 2018 questions at all. You can see the level of deception. Even if she wasn’t arrested, she would have failed,” he said.
Mr. Fabian said over 800,000 candidates have written the examination since it started on March 9.
“We want Nigerians to know that the sanctity of this examination is very sacrosanct. We will not allow anybody to destroy what we are doing, we will continue to partner with NSCDC to ensure that whoever attempts to breach the rule of the game is arrested, he concluded
The Commandant, NSCDC Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, Patrick Ukpen, paraded the suspects in Abuja on Tuesday
He said the suspects were apprehended at Baptist Academy, Karu, Abuja.
He said one of them who is also a candidate was arrested for allegedly going into the examination hall with her mobile phone.
The commandant revealed that the suspect was able to conceal the mobile phone in her underwear and brought it out during the examination.
“We have in our custody today two suspects that were involved in examination malpractice in the ongoing JAMB UTME. Their level of involvement are as follows: A lady whose name is Joy Apkabio, went into the exam hall with a telephone handset and this is against the rules covering the JAMB examination,” Mr Ukpen said
“Upon interrogation, we were also able to arrest her accomplice who is another young man by the name Andrew, who introduced her into the business and was equally involved in sending text messages of supposed answers to the examination she was doing,” he said.
Mr. Ukpen said the lady was arrested by the officers of the NSCDC through the help of CCTV cameras.
“With the use of modern technology; you know the examination centres have CCTV cameras that are sending live transmission of activities that are taking place in the examination hall, and the activities of our men and other JAMB officials who were deployed to the centres. We were able to detect what she was doing and she was immediately arrested,” he said.
According to the commandant, “they are in our custody now and we are going to carry out further investigations regarding their involvement and to know if there are other accomplice, he will equally be traced and arrested and thereafter, they will be prosecuted.”
“I have made a very big mistake which will not happen again. The painful thing is that it has tarnished my image”, he said
On his part, the Public Relations Officer of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Fabian Benjamin, said the arrest will serve as a deterrent to other candidates.
“Just as the commandant has said, we are doing this not because she has been arrested, we want this to serve as a deterrent to other candidates.”
He said the board was monitoring the coordination of the examination across the nation from its headquarters.
“This particular candidate was spotted from our headquarters, we have made it clear that all our centres are covered by CCTV cameras.
“We got a report that something was happening in Baptist Academy, Karu, and we immediately dispatched a team who went there and got the candidate arrested.We want to sound it very clear that there is no shortcut to success. It is no longer business as usual because you will be spotted if you do anything in the examination hall”, Mr Benjamin said.
He said the female candidate went into the hall with her phone and text messages were sent to her.
“We discovered that the answers were for 1990 JAMB questions, they are not for 2018 questions at all. You can see the level of deception. Even if she wasn’t arrested, she would have failed,” he said.
“We want Nigerians to know that the sanctity of this examination is very sacrosanct. We will not allow anybody to destroy what we are doing, we will continue to partner with NSCDC to ensure that whoever attempts to breach the rule of the game is arrested, he concluded
Comments