The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, on Thursday distanced the board from the hitches experienced by 1.7 million candidates in the examination.

Speaking at an informal meeting with newsmen at one of the CBT centres in Ilupeju, Lagos, where he went to monitor the UTME, Oloyede blamed most of the woes being faced by candidates on owners, operators of the CBT centres, who he said had promised JAMB hitch-free examination.

There have been complaints of poor internet services at most Computer Based Test, CBT, centres causing delays or disruptions and alleged muddling up of subject combinations since the examination started.

There have, also, been complaints about poor power supply leading to computer shutdowns, inability of the biometrics system to identify or authenticate candidates fingerprints, among others.

Oloyede, who blamed owners of the CBT centres, not only for poor technical services, but, also, for exploiting candidates by overcharging them on registration, promised to review the centres in next year’s exam.

He said, “I have gone round some of these centres. There will surely be a review after this exam. In Lagos, for instance, we have 65 private-owned CBT centres being used for this exam. But, I am not sure up to 30 of them will remain in partnership with us after this year.

“I am aware of centres where candidates paid up to N15, 000 before they could be registered. It is even the only seemly sympathetic ones among them that are charging N8,500.”

The JAMB boss expressed disappointment “with the stress they put the candidates through after collecting so much from them” and talked about “muddling up candidates names and subject combinations, sometimes intentionally in order to extort more money from them”.

He however put part of the blame on the candidates themselves and their parents who chose to patronize some of the centres he said are ill-equipped to handle JAMB registration.

“I cannot help you if you cannot help yourself,” Oloyede told a mother of one of the candidates, Hillary Ashikodi, who sat for wrong subject combinations in the examination.

Hillary, who chose Law and Mass Communication, as his first and second choices respectively but registered English, Literature, Government and Christian Religious Knowledge as UTME subjects, however got English, Government, Islamic Religious Knowledge and Christian Religious Knowledge in the examination.