The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says candidates who could not sit for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) within their scheduled time owing to no fault of theirs will now take the examination on Saturday.
This is contained in a statement by Dr. Fabian Benjamin, Head, Public Affairs and Protocol of the board and issued to journalists on Monday in Lagos.
According to Benjamin, of the 1,586,765 that indicated interest to sit for the examination, only 80,166 are outstanding.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this year’s UTME that began on April 25 experienced some technical issues in centres in some states, that made some candidates unable to participate in the exercise within their scheduled time.
“The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that all candidates, who could not sit the 2023 UTME within their scheduled time owing to no fault of theirs, would be rescheduled to take the examination on Saturday, May 6.
“Candidates under this category are principally those who were verified at their centres but could not sit the examination, those who could not be biometrically verified, and those with mismatched data.
“It is equally noteworthy that the board had informed Nigerians that it would be using some novel innovative methods in conducting the exercise, with the aim of completely arresting incidence of examination infractions.
“This has been largely achieved as the exercise recorded the lowest reported cases of infractions, but with equally emerging challenges on account of human negligence which led to some candidates not being able to sit the examination on the first day.
“This notwithstanding, out of the 1,586,765 candidates that indicated interest in sitting the examination, only 80,166 are now outstanding,” he said.
According to him, on the first day of the 2023 UTME, a number of candidates in some centres could not sit the examination, as well as in some centres on subsequent days, due to diverse reasons.
Benjamin, however, noted that though a reasonable number of them had been rescheduled and taken the examination, some had yet to take theirs.
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He stated that as part of decision reached at the end of an emergency management meeting held on Sunday, April 30, the board had therefore fixed Saturday, May 6, for all categories of candidates who had not taken their examination.
He listed the categories as unverified candidates, who were registered for the 2023 UTME, without manifesting any biometric difficulty, but could not be verified on the day of the examination.
“These candidates had not previously manifested any fingerprint defect or experienced any biometric challenge during the 2023 UTME registration, but could not be verified to sit the examination on their scheduled examination date.
“These candidates will be taking their examination in Abuja, under close supervision,” he stated.
Speaking further, he also identified another category of affected candidates, which are those who were scheduled to take the examination at the “BEAUTIFUL BEGINNING CBT CENTRE”, Apo in Abuja.
He stated that all candidates who were scheduled to sit the examination at the Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo, Abuja, but missed the examination for whatever reasons, had been rescheduled to take the examination on Saturday, May 6.
According to him, the rescheduling of all the candidates, who missed the examination is as a result of mistakes made in the address of the centre, which led to some of them missing their examination.
“It should be noted that the name of the centre which is Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo, Abuja, featured “Gwagwalada” rather than “Apo” hence misleading the candidates.
“As a responsible organisation, the board will not abdicate its responsibilities and has consequently, rescheduled all candidates posted to the centre, who could not sit their examination on account of the wrong address, or any other reason, to ensure that no candidate misses the examination,” he stated.
He said that the other category affected are those that were rescheduled to take the examination on Thursday, April 27, but could not receive the notification or received it late on Thursday night and hence missed the examination.
“Some of these candidates could not receive the notification because their schools held on to their channels of receiving messages, such as their SIM cards, their e-mail addresses and profile codes.
“The board, in spite of its repeated
