The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has warned candidates not to accept admission offers into tertiary institution not conveyed through its letterhead.
It also stated that any admission offer not conducted through its Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), which automates admissions, was null and void.
JAMB’s Head of Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin disclosed this in the Board’s weekly bulletin released on Monday.
According to Benjamin, the board’s attention had been drawn to offers of admissions to candidates through some institutions’ portals.
He stated that JAMB would not recognise such admissions adding that admissions conducted outside CAPS could prevent innocent candidates from taking part in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps.
The bulletin read: “The attention of the board has been drawn to the purported offer of admissions to candidates through some institutions’ portals.
“The board wishes to disassociate itself from such as it is a flagrant abuse of the automated Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), which is the only credible avenue for admission into undergraduate programmes of all tertiary institutions in the country.
“Institutions which offer admission outside CAPS do so to avoid equitable and just process which CAPS enforces.
“It would be recalled that the board had announced that it would be stopping illegitimate admissions from 2017.
“The board states unequivocally that any candidate who accepts an offer of admission outside CAPS does so at his or her own risk.
“The board reiterates that any admission into First Degree, National Certificate of Education, National Diploma and National Innovative Diploma not on the official letterhead of the board or outside CAPS is null, void and would not be condoned by JAMB.
“Institutions are again reminded that admission made outside CAPS would jeopardise the participation of the innocent candidates in the compulsory National Youth Service Corps mobilisation exercise or any job placement, which requires the certification or endorsement of the board.
“Institutions cannot publish any admission list which has not been approved on CAPS. Therefore, publishing an admission list, prior to its processing on CAPS, is improper and a source of confusion as many of such admissions were found to be inappropriate and had to be reversed.
“A case in hand is a university, which has a quota of 50 for LL.B Programme, but went ahead to offer admission and receive acceptance fee from 350 LL.B candidates.
“If the offer had been processed on CAPS, it would not have allowed the abuse of quota issued by the Council of Legal Education.
“The reversal of over 300 candidates is now a subject of litigation between the university and the swindled candidates.”
“The most unethical and wicked excuse that many of the candidates would drop out within the first year compounds the immorality of the whole exercise.”