The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) said that it will go ahead with the conduct of the 2012 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations in all states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory despite the insecurity in some parts of the country.
At a media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the Registrar of the board, Dibu Ojerinde debunked rumours that the examinations would not be conducted in some northern states owing to incessant bombings in the area.
He also announced the deployment of over ten thousand security personnel for this weekend’s nationwide examination exercise.
Mr Ojerinde also said that a total of 1, 503, 931 candidates have registered to take part in the examination.
According to the Registrar, this is the highest number of registered candidates the board has recorded since inception.
He said this year’s figure was a marginal increase of 10,338 candidates over the 2011 figure, as against an increase of 117,961 candidates recorded in 2011 over the 2010 figure.
He said that the examination would hold simultaneously in 375 towns in the country and in Ghana, Cameroun, Republic of Benin, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
“It is worthy to note that there is a remarkable increase in the number of registered candidates in all our foreign centres
.
“No doubt this underscores the acceptability of our tertiary educational system around the world. Many Nigerians are wishing to come back home for tertiary education,” Mr Ojerinde said.
The JAMB boss said that examination body have engaged the services of independent examination watch groups to monitor this weekend examination. He warned supervisors and invigilators to adhere strictly to instructions during the exercise.
Mr Ojerinde said that he is confident that Saturday’s examination would be hitch free across all states in Nigeria.
