By: Clement Idoko-Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has closed the window for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) registration exercise as the extension announced the previous week elapsed on Wednesday, February 22.
Going by the successes recorded so far, the Board declared that this year’s exercise is shaping up to be the smoothest the Board has ever had.
Recall that the Board had granted the extension to accommodate candidates, who could not register for the 2023 UTME within the allowable window of Saturday, 14th January to Tuesday, 14th February, 2023, owing to exigencies related to recent developments in the country.
At the close of the registration exercise, about 1.6 million candidates had successfully registered for the 2023 UTME.
Spokesperson of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, said the 1.6 million did not include the Direct Entry component of the exercise, which had commenced on Monday, 20th February, 2023 before it was put on hold on Tuesday, 21st February, 2023.
He noted that the Registrar’s monitoring team, which had gone round the country, was in Nasarawa and Delta States on the final day of the execise to oversee its conclusion.
In Asaba, Delta State, the team visited Trinity Innovation Hub Computer Based Test (CBT) Centre; Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku CBT Centre 1 and 2; Delta State Library CBT and others.
He said it was, however, remarkable that none of these centres had any candidates waiting to be registered indicating that almost all candidates, who desire to register for the exercise had done so.
Benjamin said the same situation was observed in many centres in Nasarawa State as few candidates were seen at all the centres a day to the closing date and even these were cleared before the close of work.
“Hence, from every indication, this year’s exercise is shaping up to be the smoothest the Board has ever had.
“However, based on reports received from the various monitoring teams across the country, the Board would review its SIM number swap policy as it will now require the Telcos to confirm that the old SIM being put forward for swapping previously belonged to the applicant but had been issued to another person, which would, therefore, preclude the possibility of a SIM welcome back before such swapping would be approved,” he said.
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