57,000 candidates sit for UTME nationwide

The Registrar of Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed in Abuja on Saturday that no fewer than 57,000 candidates sat for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 642 centres across the country.

Speaking at Digital Bridge Institute, Abuja, one of the UTME centres, said four centres encountered technical problems while one was being investigated for malpractices.

National Daily learnt that the 2017 kicked off across the country and would last seven days outside Sunday.

About 1.7m candidates enrolled for the 2017 edition. At some centres, some candidates expressed dissatisfaction with the poor internet service which frustrated the two-hour examination in most centres.

ALSO SEE: JAMB registers 1.7M Candidates for 2017 UTME

Mr. Oloyede explained that “Out of 642 centres, we had problems with four in Bauchi, Kano,Uturu and Ekpoma.

“Everything was okay, there was a little disturbance in Ekpoma and we are monitoring what is going on.

“There was a little problem in Uturu; we are monitoring what is happening there too,’’ he said.

He added, “Due to what happened over night in Maiduguri and because of the militarisation of the campus, we had to delay the commencement of the exams in Maiduguri.

”Also the Seventh Day Adventist will not have exams in all the centres nationwide on Saturday,’’ he added.

Enobong Bassey, a staff of the Digital Bridge Institute, said this year’s edition of the UTME was the best so far that the institution had conducted.

“Everything went smoothly, the examination was to start 8am and all the students were seated by 10 minutes to eight.

“Though a few students came late because of the grace period, they were able to write.

“Where there was any issue with any system, there was no problem because we had sufficient backup system.