The House of Representatives has called on the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to suspend the policy of National Identification Number (NIN) as a requirement for candidates intending to register for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)
This followed a motion presented by Zainab Gimba (APC, Borno) who called on JAMB to review the policy on the use of NIN for prospective applicants until 2021.
According to her, it was necessary for JAMB to review the timeline pending the establishment of more enrolment centres by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) across the country.
She further stated that although many Nigerians turned out to be captured by NIMC, most have not been able to do so due to infrastructural challenges like poor network, power failure, no power supply and sometimes inadequate manpower or equipment to attend to them. she mentioned that an official of NIMC recently disclosed that less than 20 percent of Nigerians are captured in their database.
She said, “The House is worried however that many prospective candidates from remote locations in the country may not be able to register for the UTME due to non-registration with the NIMC. The notice given by JAMB is too sudden and not sufficient to allow all prospective UTME candidates to be captured by the NIMC.
“The House is also concerned that younger Nigerians and minors constitute the larger number of those yet to be captured by the NIMC mainly due to the prior registration criteria which captured persons aged 18 and above only. JAMB needs to establish a better collaboration with the NIMC, state and local governments for efficient and less-stressful registration of prospective candidates.”
While unanimously adopting the motion, the House commended JAMB for collaborating with the National Identity Management Commission towards a more transparent UTME process. The lawmakers, however, urge the board to extend the use of the national ID “in order to allow more time and better awareness for prospective candidates”.
