The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has suspended the use of National Identification Number, NIN, as a requirement for registration in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
According to JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, this decision was taken due to technical reasons.
He, however, added that it would be a compulsory requirement in the 2021 UTME and Direct Entry registrations.
His words, “You would recall that in compliance with statutory provisions, we commenced the registration of making NIN a prerequisite for registration for 2020 UTME.
“This decision was based on law and on directive but more importantly, on the fact that it was the right way to go.”
All nations of the world go that way, we have no option, we cannot be an island on our own.”
”We got to a point yesterday (Friday), that knowing fully well that the registration for 2020, both UTME and Direct Entry will start on Monday, the 13th and will go on till 17th of February which is five weeks.
“And we have just those five weeks because everything in the educational sector is programmed. UTME examination must be written before 4th of April because WASC starts on the 6th of April. And immediately after WASC, NABTEB and after NABTEClB, NECO starts. So everything is programmed, when people are making suggestions to us, they do not know what we know.”
“So on the basis of these, we came to a very sad position yesterday that we have to decide that for 2020, we are not going to use NIN as a prerequisite for registration.
“We are therefore suspending this till subsequent year,2021, when all candidates would have been given what appears like a one year notice that they will have opportunity for doing their registration.”
“But this does not affect staff, all our staff-permanent and adhoc who are going to participate in this year’s would still be required to submit their NIM for verification.”
”We are having about 11,000 people participating either as our permanent staff or adhoc staff,this remains.”
“But for the young one,we must thank them because we have gone round,particularly, in the last one week in the country and we have seen their commitment and passions but we are conscious of the fact that we have responsibility to ensure that when something is no longer realistic, we would know that it is not attainable.
“That is the reason that we are suspending the use of NIN for 2020 till 2021. That is,we are not going to use NIN as prerequisite for registration for 2020 JAMB application for both UTME and Direct Entry.”