Two officials of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) have been accused of swindling parents of candidates.
The indicted persons reportedly collected N500,000 from the said parents, promising to assist their children secure university admissions. One of the suspects, a level 12 officer at the Delta State office of the examination body, pocketed N320,000. His accomplice, a level 8 officer, took N180,000 out of the bribe money.
The petition by one of affected parent to JAMB blew the lid on the activities of the two officials.
The level 8 officer, who works at JAMB Headquarters Abuja, confessed to the criminal act but said his colleague must have hypnotized into partaking in the deal.
“It was not ordinary, he was just calling me, I don’t know him, he lured me into this when he convinced me that he has been into it for a long time,” said the level 8 officer who was not named.
On his part, the level 12 officer said economic hardship pushed him into the act.
Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, registrar, and chief executive of JAMB, said the officials swindled the parents knowing that their children might already have been slated for admission.
He said, “The admission exercise into tertiary institutions has been automated, therefore anybody working in JAMB or anybody who has good calculation, who knows what admission process is, can predict who can be admitted because it has been automated
“What is happening now is that people know those that will be admitted, because they know by the automation this person could be admitted, and they now go and be extorting the parents of those that have already been slated for admission.”
