The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board cautioned parents and guardians against enrolling children in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, issued the warning in response to a lawsuit filed by Mrs. Ifeanyi Eke against the Board regarding unsuitable text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter during her registration.
This information was part of a statement by the Board’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, on Wednesday in Abuja.
Eke had filed a N100m suit against JAMB and three others at the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged unsolicited and inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter.
In response to the incident, Oloyede stated that the Board was prepared to meet with the woman, asserting that the sender of the message was not a staff member of the Board.
The Registrar mentioned that since the incident occurred, JAMB reported to security agencies to take appropriate action, but the woman did not care, suing for N100 million at the expense of the child.
He stated, “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 get 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.”
The JAMB boss maintained that the individual obtained the telephone number of the victim at the centre because they had a form to fill out, indicating that it had dealt appropriately with the centre, the reason being that it shouldn’t have allowed unauthorised persons on the premises.
He continued, “Even if 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 persons to have access to where these candidates were. And we are urging parents to allow their children to be mature before registering for UTME.
“We are now saying that any centre that allows a parent to get near to where the candidates are being 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.”
