... To Occupy JAMB Offices Monday
The National Association of Nigerian Students(NANS) has described the 2023 Direct Entry registration exercise as shoddy and untidy by the management of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the registration of candidates in the ongoing exercise.
The umbrella body of students in Nigeria, in a statement titled: “NANS Decries Barbaric Jamb Policy” signed by Comrade Akinteye Babatunde Afeez, Vice-President, External Affairs belittled JAMB for inflicting so much pain on candidates seeking Direct Entry into tertiary institutions as they littered the Ikoyi Lagos headquarters office.
Recall that NANS had earlier in April appealed to JAMB to decentralise the registration exercise for Direct Entry to avoid endless queues and prevent candidates from travelling to the state’s headquarters from far-flung places.
NANS stated that the restriction placed on the registration of candidates to the offices of JAMB located in state capitals across the country is a mockery of the avalanche of ICT infrastructures available in the country and time-wasting.
The association said its monitoring team’s visits to the Ikoyi Office of JAMB depicts a show of shame, incompetence and inhumanity as prospective candidates were forced to sleep in the open while others keep vigil to verify their results and get registered.
The statement read, “As of 1 am 13th May, 2023, I was at the JAMB office in Lagos to personally confirm an official report brought to my desk by an ad-hoc committee set up by my office to look into the complaints from several students in their bid to obtain the UTME Direct Entry forms into various institutions across the nation.
In the report of the committee, it was reliably gathered that since Monday, May 8, 2023, the Nigerian Students, in their bid to complete registration after obtaining the Direct Entry (DE) ePINs, have been sleeping in JAMB offices across the nation;
“The number of students storming an outlet per time can never be adequately catered for due to the large number of candidates involved.
“Only one outlet has been designated by JAMB to cater for one state per time. As a result, a state like Lagos State and another like Jigawa State have been categorized by JAMB to have the same number of DE students and hence have been given one outlet each to cater to the candidates in each state.
“The desperate rush for registration by these students is largely due to the time frame of the completion of their registrations. To be able to meet up with this, they became more desperate and began to make the JAMB offices their temporary homes daily.
Therefore, the National Association of Nigerian Students-NANS has resolved that the closure date earlier slated for Friday, May 13, 2023, for completion of Direct Entry registration must be extended until further notice;
“More registration outlets should be provided to cater for the large number of students scampering desperately to use the insufficient number of registration outlets that are presently available. Also, the peculiarity of different states should be considered;
“The JAMB registrar, Prof. Olanrewaju Oloyede should publicly apologize to the Nigerian Students for the unnecessary stress he has put us through and he should be more humane in his approach next time when considering the implementation of a policy of this manner.
The statement added, “Lastly, injustice to one is an injustice to all. If all these resolutions are not met with immediate effect, the Nigerian Students shall occupy all offices in Nigeria on or before 8 am on Monday, 15th May, 2023 and we shall remain there until we’re taken seriously and our needs are met.”
