The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released a list of candidates whose certificates it had impounded over the candidates’ involvement in malpractices during examinations held in December 1992 and 1993.
The council released the examination years and certificate numbers of the affected candidates but did not publish their names. It said they were involved in impersonation.
However, the Joint Admissions Matriculations Board (JAMB), in its weekly bulletin on Monday, published the names of the indicted WAEC candidates.
In the JAMB bulletin, WAEC identified the candidates as: “Ukaumunna C. December 1992 examination with certificate number, NGSP 0233613; Chinna H. December 1993 with certificate number, NGSP 0572427; Koffi E. December 1993, with number NGSP 0455669; and Oham J. December 1994, with certificate number, NGSP 0177271.”
Others are “Mbara G. December 2001, with certificate WNR 2248072; Ifo S. December 2001, with number NGWASSCP 1307367; Ugwu P. December 2005 with certificate number, NGWASSCP 4534182; Anene J. December 2008, with number, NGWASSCP 5505913; Ogbenna C. December 2011, with certificate number, NGWASSCP 06927486; and Nwangwu I. December 2014, with certificate number, NGWASSCP 8392056.”
WAEC speaks
Demianus Ojijeogu, WAEC Spokesperson said the certificates of the affected candidates were impounded at the Zonal/Branch offices of WAEC at the point of issuance.
He said the candidates made confessional statements to the effect that they were impersonated in the various examinations indicated against them.
”The certificates were returned by the WAEC offices concerned to our Post Examinations Department (PED) for presentation to the Nigeria Examinations Committee (NEC) for cancellation, ” Mr. Ojijeogu said
He said NEC is the highest decisionmaking organ of WAEC on examination-related matters. ”NEC met on November 5-7, 2019 and canceled the results,” he said.
Restitution
As with WAEC, JAMB has also been taking steps to protect the integrity of its examinations and penalize cheating.
Recently, the board published 19 examinations for restitution. Although the board did not publish their names, it published the examination numbers, certificate numbers and the year.
JAMB said in order to avoid such impersonation during its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, it was partnering the National Identity Management Commission to enforce candidates’ registration for the national identity number.
The board said, “In view of the cases listed JAMB’s partnership with NIMC is imperative. In order to have a seamless registration for the 2020 UTME, we have put machinery in place to test run the new registration regime under the joint platform of JAMB and NIMC using the NIN.
The Registrar of the board, Ishaq Oloyede, in the bulletin also directed members of staff in its offices nationwide to participate in the trial registration which started on Friday, November 29, and was to end Tuesday, December 3.
According to him, no fewer than 1,800 members of staff would be involved in the trial registration designed to assess the workability of the new registration regime.
National Identification Number (NIN)
The Nation in September reported how JAMB called on prospective candidates for its 2020 UTME to acquire the National Identification Number (NIN).
The National Identity Number (NIN) is the nation’s database capturing exercise-driven data towards assigning a unique identity to every Nigerian
The board said the aim was to ensure the biometric and other necessary details of a candidate were captured, to check examination malpractice.
”The JAMB will, during the 2020 registration exercise, use the National Identity Number (NIN) generated after successful registration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).”
However, the House of Representatives asked JAMB to suspend its “no NIN, no JAMB” policy until 2021.
