JAMB may postpone 2021 UTME over NIN registration

The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Professor Is-haq Oloyede on Friday said it was uncertain about the commencement of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

He said the state of the examination is hinged on difficulties faced by candidates in registering for their National Identification Number (NIN), a mandatory requirement for registration.

“While the mock examination will go on as scheduled, we cannot say the same of the main examination,” Oloyede said at a virtual press conference with stakeholders on Friday.

“This is primarily because of NIN. We have more than 600,000 candidates who have indicated interest in our examination but are yet to receive their details.”

JAMB had set May 15 as the deadline for the registration, but only a little over one million candidates have so far registered for the UTME and about 30,000 candidates for Direct Entry.

This figure is low when compared to about 1.9 million UTME and 200,000 DE candidates captured last year.

According to reports, as at Wednesday, May 12, about 600,000 prospective candidates, who have initiated the registration process, were yet to receive the required codes to be sent to their mobile lines by the network operators.

He said the decision would be taken at the meeting slated to hold between Friday and Saturday morning.