Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cautioned parents against enrolling minors for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, gave the warning while reacting to a suit filed by one Mrs. Ifeanyi Eke against the Board over an alleged inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter during the course of her registration for the examination.
Mrs. Eke had filed a N100 million suit against JAMB and three others before the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged unsolicited and inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter by JAMB.
But, reacting to the incident in an interview with journalists on Tuesday, Oloyede said the Board was ready to meet with the woman in court, maintaining that the source of the offensive messages was not JAMB.
The Registrar said that since the incident happened, it had reported to the security agencies to take appropriate action, but the woman was adamant by suing the Board for N100 million.
He said: “The person is not our staff, he is not even a staff of the centre, he is a co-student. He is just like a candidate, an undergraduate in one of the universities.
“And talking about our data, nobody has access to our data. The person got the information from the phone of the underage girl.
“How did your girl of 15 years was ready for university now, if she is law abiding as she claimed? The law today is that you must spend six years before primary school, six years in primary school and six years in secondary school. By that time, you are 18.
“But when you reduce three years, you must have cut corners to make a 15-year-old child ready for university education.
“We will meet her in court, it is for the court to decide whether she deserves that money,” Oloyede said.
The JAMB boss maintained that the sender got the telephone number of the underage girl at the examination centre because they had a form to fill, adding that it has dealt appropriately with the centre, the reason being that it shouldn’t have allowed an unauthorised person into its premises.
According to him, “Even the centres do not have access to our database. The person must have collected the number while interacting with her at the centre.
“We dealt with the centre on negligence, for allowing unauthorised person to have access to where these candidates were. And we are urging parents to allow their children to be matured before registering for UTME.
“We are now saying that any centre that allows a parent to get near to where the candidates are been screened, that centre will be deleted.
“Secondly, we have instructed the centres to stop identifying the parents of the candidates and we will take appropriate action against the candidates.
“Parents cannot destroy the career of their children because of their emotions and indiscipline.”
