Photo: Courtest Punch
The Joint Admission Matriculation Board has said the allegation of discrimination against it by an 18-year-old admission seeker living with a disability, Esther Abiona, was untrue.
Abiona had, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, claimed that she was denied the opportunity of registering for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination on the grounds of her disability, a position which JAMB said was false and not representative of its ideals.
The teenager, who lost all her fingers on her left hand to a strange infection when she was 12, claimed that her inability to provide 10 fingers for biometric verification was responsible for the failure of the JAMB registration officers to capture her in the system for the 2023 registration.
When contacted for a response to the allegations, JAMB’s spokesperson, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said it was not true that she was denied the opportunity to register solely on the grounds of her disability.
Benjamin said, “When there is a challenge in capturing 10 fingers, the officers are meant to capture the fingers that are available and write a report on why the others could not be captured.”
Also, in a rejoinder titled, “The True Story of Esther Abiona – JAMB”, a copy of which was sent to The PUNCH, Benjamin stated that Abiona’s narration was not correct.
He noted that the candidate had registered for UTME twice despite the disability before the 2023 exercise.
He said, “Ms Abiona registered for UTME at Mountain Top University CBT Centre, Ogun State, at 4.46 pm on May 12, 2021.
“Given her obvious condition and in line with the guidelines, she was registered with five fingers and five toes. She applied for MBBS at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. Unfortunately, she did not meet the requirement for admission into any course.
