Corruption: JAMB Now Collect Grants From Prospective Corps Members.

Some intending National Youth Service Corps members for batch ‘A’ 2013, have accussed officials of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) of extortion before they could be issued admission letter.

The alleged extortion is said to be rampant in Enugu and Owerri offices of JAMB. The admission letter is reuested by various schools management as evidence to prove to NYSC that the intending corps member wrote the exam.

This came as the board’s office in Lagos said it did not have the technical capacity to attend to the prospective corps members.

It would be recalled that the NYSC in collaboration with JAMB issued a new directive that graduates preparing for NYSC must provide Unified Matriculation Tertiary Examination (UMTE) registration numbers before they are mobilised.

The officials were accused of demanding between N3,000 and N5,000 per person before attending to them.

A graduate of Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), who was among several intending corps members who besieged Lagos office, told Vanguard on condition of anonymity that since Lagos office said it had no capacity to issue the letter, his last option would be to go to Owerri where officials of JAMB were demanding N5,000 for the letter.

Attempts to reach JAMB registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde proved abortive as they was no response to several calls and text messages.

Vanguard that the 2013 batch ‘A’ list was released in various schools across the country last Friday with many of the graduates falling under NYSC error list which was attributed to the inability of JAMB to rectify the candidates’ registration numbers. For instance, at the University of Lagos (unilag), about 100 persons fall into the error list.

A check by Vanguard in the Lagos office of JAMB revealed that the many prospective corps members besieged the premises yesterday to get their JAMB admission letter only to be told that the Lagos office was not in the position to handle such.

One of the receptionists, (names witheld), said the Lagos office could not handle such inquiry as it had no facility equipped with students’ data.

She directed all prospective corps members to a directive pasted in the receptionist’s office which read that all those who wrote UMTE exam before 2008 should go to Abuja for their admission.