A peaceful protest on Wednesday marred the commencement of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) registration for the 2015/2016 session screening of candidates for the JAMB’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
However, the Registrar of UNILAG, Dr. Taiwo Ipaye, said that only 9,000 out of the 32,000 candidates that applied for admission into the university were eligible for screening.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the parents of the candidates, who brought their children to the campus for the exercise, expressed their disappointments over their children’s exclusion from the JAMB’s list of shortlisted candidates.
Dr. Ben Emone, a medical practitioner and parent, said that his son made UNILAG his first choice, and scored 260 marks in the UTME.
According to him, it has been the tradition of the university to peg its cut-off mark, at least, at 200 for the post UTME.
Emone expressed dissatisfaction at whatever reasons both the university and JAMB were posting for the sudden change in procedure.
Mr. Sodunke Oludotun, the National President, Association of Tutorial School Operators, blamed the crisis on the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde.
He alleged that Ojerinde was insensitive to the plights of parents.
Oludotun said that the JAMB registrar was wrong to have introduced such last minute decision after he had announced to the public that the cut-off mark for admissions into the universities was 180.
He said that the issues would have turned out differently if the registrar had gone an extra mile, to carry the general public along, in board’s policy making.
Mr. Joseph Adefolalu, the immediate past Chairman, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), UNILAG Chapter, said that JAMB’s action was meant to destabilise the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
This should be resisted, Adefolalu said.
NAN.
