Just in: How JAMB relied on BHIU report to suspend NIN for 2020 UTME
Rewind to Wednesday, January 8, 2020, we published a research report by Business Hilights Intelligence Unit (BHIU) captioned: https://businesshilights.com.ng/jamb-to-record-less-than-400000-candidates-this-year-due-to-nin-challenge/, and at the very last paragraph of the report, we said “Accordingly, BHIU is therefore calling for two way out; a total ban on all NIN seekers except JAMB candidates for at least one month or dropping of the NIN precondition for registering for 2020 JAMB examination.”
Fast forward to today, Saturday January 11, 2020 and behold, JAMB announced this on its verified twitter handle: “NIN is suspended for 2020 registration. Candidates are to only send names to 55019 to create profile. No need for NIN for 2020 registration.”
This otherwise means that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has suspended the use of National Identification Number (NIN) as prerequisite for 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) registration and that prospective candidates would now resort to the previous system.
Recall that the examination body had, on Friday night instructed candidates to go to NIMC enrollment centres all over the country on Saturday (today) for their registration. “All NIMC enrollment centers in Abuja, Kano and Lagos and Enugu, will open on Saturday 11th January, 2020 to enroll UTME /DE Candidates ONLY. “Candidates should come along with their school means of Identification and required documents for the NIN enrollment exercise,” the message on JAMB twitter handle read.
However, JAMB’s latest tweet showing suspension of NIN as a precondition supersedes the Friday night message.
Though no reason was given by JAMB for the embarrassing official policy inconsistency, analysts are divided on the reasons considered by JAMB for the fire brigade counter-tweeting between Friday and Saturday.
Whereas a section of observers’ linked the development to the agency’s observation that it may not record huge revenue which it will remit to the government to show performance as it has been doing, others say the nationwide outcries and sufferings of prospective candidates in getting NIN was the last straw that broke the Camel’s back.
Business Hilights recalls that on Wednesday, the link to our story on JAMB and Nin was forwarded to NIMC DG’s (Engr Aliyu Aziz) email seeking his reaction, but up till now, he never responded.
BHIU is an independent business research arm of Media Hilights Group and Media Hilights Integrated Company Limited, publishers of Business Hilights Online and Markets Business Hilights Newspapers.
In 2019, more than four foreign firms relied on our commissioned reports (which they paid for) to invest in Nigeria. Whereas two of the foreign investors were in oil and gas, one was in telecoms while the last but not the least was in logistics sector of the Nigerian economy.
