UTME 2019: We’ll investigate candidates’ inability to do biometric verification

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has said it will investigate reported cases of inability of some candidates to do biometric verification as the 2019/20 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination commenced on Thursday.

UTME candidate in examination hall

The board’s Head of Media and Publicity, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria in a telephone interview on Friday in Abuja.

Benjamin also said that the release of the results would not be immediate, as the board was taking time to process before releasing them in order to avoid multiple cancellations.

On the biometric verification, Benjamin said that the board was looking into all reported cases and would take a decision soon.

“We will look at the cases brought before us to know if they are actual challenges or part of malpractice.

“This is because, we discovered that some candidates have done something, and they intend to take advantage of the biometric verification challenge as an excuse. So, we need to ascertain the genuineness of these cases.

“I assure you we are looking at it and would do something.”

NAN reports that the 2019/20 UTME which commenced on Thursday, April 11 nationwide was not totally hitch-free, as some candidates complained of their inability to be verified through the biometric process, either at the beginning or at end of the exam.

However, NAN also reports that some centres recorded smooth conduct of the process, as over 1.8 million candidates who registered for the exercise were expected to sit for it from April 11 to April 15 in the 698 Computer Based Test centres across the country.

(NAN)