Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has announced that e-mail addresses will no longer be a requirement for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, and Direct Entry, DE, registration processes.
JAMB said that while crying out that ad-hoc staff allowance has been hijacked into the accounts of over a dozen fraudsters who gained entry into the internet site of the board.
The board said that over N10 million meant to be paid to its ad-hoc staff has been hijacked, adding that because of this, mobile phone alone would be the only major requirement.
This was disclosed by JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who noted that the use of email was no longer required for the registration.
He, while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that the new system was to ensure that candidates’ information was not exposed to dubious cyber cafe operators and other criminal elements.
The Professor said the fraudsters altered profiles of the board’s ad hoc staff, diverting the money meant for their allowances.
He further revealed that the scam was uncovered after the board undertook a careful investigation, leading to the arrest of one Sahabi Zubairu from Takum in Taraba State and several others.
Explaining that government policy required that monies meant for ad hoc staff were paid directly into the accounts of the beneficiaries, he regretted that the situation gave room to the challenge the board was encountering.
He decried the failure of the accounts department to detect the fraud by cross checking the names on the accounts to ensure they tallied with those listed on the website or owners of the codes.
The JAMB boss, who noted that ad hoc staff of the board had since been paid, however, assured that the stolen money will be recovered, as he vowed to hand perpetrators of the crime over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for further investigation and prosecution.
Explaining how the criminals successfully gained access to the profiles of the ad hoc staff, the JAMB head said they used keylogger, a software that allows access to the profile of anyone who had logged in using a public cybercafé even after the person has logged out and gone
