Authorities of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board has shut down seven examination centres across Bayelsa State for violating its rules and regulations for examination.
According to available data, the closure of the centres leaves Bayelsa State with only four centres to cater to about 24,000 candidates.
The state Coordinator of JAMB, Abdusalam Mohammed, who made this known during a call on the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, explained that some of the examination centres were delisted for duplicating the Virtual Private Network of their router.
Others were delisted for charging unsuspecting candidates outrageous sums of money during registration.
Mohammed said, “Initially, Bayelsa had eleven examination centers, and so far seven out of this number have been delisted from our platform for various infractions. The owners of some of these centres tampered with the VPN of our router. And that is a very big offense.
“They duplicated the VPN by moving the router from one location to another location where they did whatever they liked, which is a very big offense.
“Others were overcharging candidates. During registration, we sent out a monitoring team and they came back with the report that candidates were charged N5000 for a service that should ordinarily cost N2,500.”
Responding, Chairman of NUJ in the state, Samuel Numonengi, frowned at the activities of the operators of the examination centres delisted, saying that their actions do not mean well for the future of Bayelsa State.
He said “We cannot stand people jeopardising the future of our children in Bayelsa State. So it is on this note I want to join you to condemn their actions and encourage parents and candidates to stand up against any form of infraction perpetrated by these individuals that have questionable character.”
