The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) generated N400 million from birth dates alterations by applicants in the first year of Professor Ishaq Oloyede’s resumption of office as registrar of the organisation.
Professor Oloyede explained that people with concerns sought changes to their dates of birth on the JAMB portal in order to meet the requirements to participate in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The registrar revealed this in a presentation at the 2021 Batch ‘A’ pre-mobilisation workshop of the NYSC for institutions and other stakeholders in Abuja.
He said: “In my first year as registrar, we collected over N400 million from people, who wanted to change their dates of birth. I was wondering why they wanted to change their dates of birth. We are not looking for owo eje (blood money) and that was why we put strict instruction”.
Oloyede said after due diligence, he effected the changes in the dates of birth on the JAMB portal by himself.
“If you want to change anything, you must show reasons. That is why change of names and birthdays are going down now, because they know that it is not going to be easy. We look at the primary school certificate. The best way to know a criminal is that he or she doesn’t have a primary school certificate.
“If you ask prospective corps members, they will tell you that many of the reasons given by JAMB for rejection is NYSC syndrome. When somebody wants to cut his age and you know in our portal, you must give reasons for rejection. The phrase we put there is ‘NYSC syndrome’. That is, you want to cut your age to be able to meet the NYSC”.
He added that before any modification is effected on the date of birth, facts relied upon must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.