JAMB plans mobile courts for exam fraudsters

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board may soon partner law enforcement agencies in the country and the judiciary to set up mobile courts for the trial of examination fraudsters and offenders.

A former Registrar of the board, Prof Bello Salim, made this recommendation to the registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, in the JAMB bulletin released on Sunday and obtained by our correspondent, while lamenting the slow pace of prosecution of examination offenders.

Salim noted that since the examinations had gone digital, the law governing the conduct of examination should go digital as well and fast-tracking trials were needed so that examination malpractice cases did not get bogged down in courts.

The former registrar said, “Examination malpractice is a global malaise. The battle is ongoing; we haven’t won it. When you present examination malpractice suspects at the beginning of August, for instance, and a court hearing is fixed for the middle of October, the hearing is adjourned almost as soon as it starts to maybe January. The court process will thus keep dragging on.

“Let there be mobile courts just like the election tribunals to treat all cases of examination malpractices and other unwholesome practices promptly. We should have penalties that are enforceable. The prescribed seven-year jail term for anyone involved in examination malpractices should be enforced.”

Salim, who left JAMB 13 years ago, scolded some law enforcement agencies in the country which sometimes were sympathetic to examination cheats, because of the severity of the punishments which could entail incarceration of the culprits.

The former registrar also noted that the National Youth Service Corps must intensify its search for unqualified graduates seeking to participate in the one-year national service in order to sanitise the corps.