JAMB on fire over NIN requirement for 2020 UTME/D.E 

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Thursday advised the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to suspend the compulsory requirement for young tertiary education seekers to possess National Identification Number (NIN).

JAMB recently announced the dates for the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) examination as well as the optional mock examination.

Lagos State Chapter Chairman of the party, Pastor Kayode Jacobs, said the call followed the inability of the National Identity Card Management Commission (NIMC) to provide enough capacity to cope with the volume of persons seeking registration within the very short time limit given by JAMB.

Jacobs condemned the disgraceful extortion being perpetrated by registering officials who are capitalizing on the desperate situation of the applicants.

The ADC leader questioned the rationale for the urgency of the requirement and wondered why it could not have been made to take effect a year or two after the policy formulation and announcement.

“Why not make it take effect from 2021 or 2022 and if it must be now, what measures did JAMB and NIMC put on ground to achieve seamless process”, he queried.

“While we do not dismiss the importance of getting every Nigerian captured in the identity card registration, considering current security challenges, it is bizarre that policy administrators only consider the thought out benefits of policies without any consideration for responsibility and responsiveness in the process of execution.

“At the end of the rush, data would have been wrongly filled, names wrongly spelt and money, materials and time would have been wasted in the bid just to ‘get NIN for JAMB’.

“For us at ADC, what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Getting National Identification Number is beyond JAMB, it is to get our national records straight in all facets of human endeavors. It should, therefore, be properly handled with best practice, process and delivery.

We plead with JAMB to have a rethink, except they have reasons not disclosed to Nigerians. Government should avoid overburdening the people in a desperate bid to show capacity and performance, it may be counter-productive”, the statement concluded.