The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps has arrested a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidate, Cletus Kokowa, for reportedly hiring a syndicate to upgrade his scores from 162 to 206. The candidate with Registration Number 95329290ED from Bayelsa State, was arrested on Thursday at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board headquarters in Bwari, Abuja, where he confessed that he was asked to pay N10,000 for the upgrading.

Reports say that Cletus contacted the syndicate through a WhatsApp group a few weeks ago after he learnt that they could upgrade his score from 162. He was later sent a false result notification which stated that his score was now 206. However, his UTME results remained the same on the JAMB portal, this led the father of the boy to write a letter of complaint to the board to correct Cletus’ score.

Kokowa arrived JAMB headquarters with his uncle who is an army officer, following the board invitation to come with the two results as proof, after which he confessed on Thursday to have employed a syndicate.

He said, “Those people sent a mail to my electronic mail inbox that they could help me to upgrade my score. I then sent them my registration number and e-mail address. When the results were released and I checked, they showed me 206. Then, one of them called me and demanded payment.

“I later went to check and I found 162. I was confused. I had heard that upgrading scores was an offence, but I didn’t really believe it. I did not tell my father and my uncle about the syndicate” 

Concerning the incident, the JAMB Registrar, Oloyede, said the board would ensure the arrest and prosecution of candidates discovered to have engaged in fraudulent practices before, during and after the examination.

He said, “One of the popular claims candidates usually make is that JAMB issued two different UTME results to them. But I said it was a lie because this result was processed via information and communication technology.

“When this boy came with his complaint, I asked for his records to be brought and we discovered that he had contacted fraudsters who gave him a fake result. We discovered that the result given to him was an imposition of another candidate’s result on his own.

“He is with the NSCDC and he will be handed over to the police for prosecution.”