The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has arrested five persons for various infractions in the ongoing registration exercise for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in some parts of the country.

Spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday, said, “Some of the registration thieves are owners of Computer-Based Test centres who were licensed to conduct registration exercise for the forthcoming UTME.”

The organisation said the fraudsters were apprehended in various locations where they were perpetrating their illegal activities.

They were said to have confessed to spending over N20 million on the construction a radio platform with which they hacked into the registration exercise of JAMB.

“These registration thieves deployed fake biometric capturing mechanisms and super-imposed registration slip just to satisfy the curiosity of innocent candidates that their registration was successful. And on the day of examination, such candidates’ data would either be edited, or not found on the JAMB data base. Such candidates would not be verified during the examination proper.

Benjamin said, “The fraudsters were arrested from Oyo, Ogun and Maiduguri by officers and men of the NSCDC and brought to Abuja where startling revelations of their operations were made. While being paraded in the presence of the Commandant-General of NSCDC, Alhaji Abdullahi Gana Mohamadu, the fraudsters confessed  to numerous registration infractions that JAMB couldn’t imagine.

“More worrisome is the massive investment by E- Kindle CBT centres to penetrate the airtel system we are using to perpetrate all forms of wholesome practices. They register candidates without proper biometric, which means such candidates will have problems with their details during examination if not corrected immediately. Investigation has clearly shown that JAMB under Prof. Is-haq Oloyede may be in for a bigger fight given his stand on anti-corruption.”

“From  investigation at the headquarters of the NSCDC, it was clear that they had powerful men backing them to thwart the efforts of JAMB. If not, how will you justify them spending over N20 million to construct a radio platform  just to hack into the Board’s registration exercise if not to destroy the entire system and put the Board in bad light. Some of the locations from which these criminal elements were operating  include Oyo, Ogun and Kwara States.”