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The result of the
maiden Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, held on
Saturday, 17 April 2010 was released at the weekend by the Joint
Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

Announcing the
results in Abuja, Dibu Ojerinde, Registrar of JAMB, said over 68 per
cent of the candidates that sat for the examination passed; while the
results of about 20,780 candidates are being withheld.

“On Saturday 17
April, 2010, the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board conducted
the first UTME,” Mr. Ojerinde said. “A total of 1, 375, 652 candidates
applied for the 2010 UTME and 271 candidates sat for the examination in
six foreign countries. However, out of 1,276,795 candidates that sat
for the 2010 UTME, the result of 1,228,607, representing 96.23 per
cent, are today released while results of 48,188 are still being
screened before release or otherwise.”

He equally disclosed that 42 centres in 10 states have been de-recognised by JAMB.

The centres, according to him, were de-recognised for their unacceptable behaviours during the examination across the nation.

“The following
centres are being investigated for de-recognition: Abia 3, Akwa Ibom 3,
Bayelsa 3, Cross River 1, Delta 4, Edo 1, Enugu 5, Imo 7, Lagos 7 and
Rivers 12.

Malpractice capital

“In some of these
centres, they beat our staff; some even were collecting money from
candidates. Some of the centres have no chairs,” Mr. Ojerinde said. “By
the time we got there, they removed the chairs and were asking
candidates to pay money before they could use the chairs. Some
collected the handsets from the candidates but later asked them to pay
N1000 before giving it to them to use in the hall. This was rampant in
two states in particular, Rivers and Bayelsa and we cannot condone it.
That is what we are now saying; we are de-recognising such centres.”

The registrar
further hinted that out of the 20,780 candidates that got involved in
examination malpractice in 38 states, Bayelsa, Rivers and Lagos states
topped the list with 5442, 3302 and 2847 cases of examination
malpractice.

He said the total
cases of examination malpractices represents 1.63 per cent which,
according to him, is low compared to previous examinations. The results
of the candidates are being withheld and will eventually be cancelled
if they are found guilty after thorough investigation.

While announcing
the result in Abuja, JAMB’s registrar said he would not be able to
announce the name of the best candidate for the examination due to some
cases of alleged malpractices.

Mr. Ojerinde said
that 48,188 results of candidates, representing 3.77 per cent of total
candidates that sat for the examination, are still being screened
before being released or finally cancelled.

No best candidate yet

He explained that
the board will not name the best candidate now until verifications into
all cases of alleged malpractices have been concluded, adding that the
highest scorer could emerge from among those whose results are being
withheld adding that 27 per cent of the candidates failed this year’s
examination.

“The
post-examination activities commenced immediately after the examination
on Saturday 17th April. These include retrieval of examination
documents from the custodians, collation of reports from supervisors,
invigilators and other stakeholders on the conduct of the examination
and cases of examination malpractice and irregularities,” he said.

“The result of the
scores shows that 501,463, about 41 per cent scored 200 and above;
832,434 candidates representing 68 per cent scored 180 and above while
330,971 scored between 180 and 199 representing 27 per cent.”

Imo State has the
highest number of candidates that registered for the examination with a
total of 111,613 candidates while Federal Capital Territory has the
lowest number of applicants with only 2393 candidates.

Analysing the application by gender, Mr. Ojerinde disclosed that
there are more males than female applicant. “Detailed analysis of
application by gender shows that 769,416 applicants are males while
606, 236 candidates are females. These figures show that 44.07 per cent
are females while 55.93 per cent are males.”