Following the racket and exploitation of candidates by the officials of national identity management, the requirement of National Identification Number (NIN) for registration in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has been suspended till 2021.
The suspension of the requirement of NIN will also affect the Direct Entry registration for the year, head of JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede has explained. Oloyede, who stated this at a media briefing in Abuja attributed the decision to what he called technical reasons. He cited the ongoing challenges being faced by candidates in getting the NIN registration as part of the reason the board decided to push the implementation of the requirement as a precondition for the UTME and Direct till next year.
Although he would not admit that officials of NIM were exploiting hapless candidates, Oloyede said the NIN would, however, be a necessary requirement for UTME and Direct Entry registrations next year. Many candidates seeking admission through JAMB to the universities in Nigeria have been subjected to hardship in the process of trying to register for NIN, which was before the suspension a major requirement for registration for UTME and Direct Entry.