The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has said that university undergraduates cannot be writing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
Spokesman for JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, said this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja.
Benjamin was reacting to what he described as a misleading and unfortunate distortion of a portion of the Board’s clear directives to candidates registering for the 2026 UTME/DE, as contained in the 2026 UTME/DE advertisement.
According to him, the deliberate misrepresentation is being propagated by some unscrupulous self-styled education advocates for parochial interests.
The Board’s mouthpiece added that the development is hardly surprising, stressing that such individuals routinely surface at the commencement of every registration cycle.
He maintained that many of them do not take the time to read or properly understand the guidelines, yet hastily rush to the public space with false narratives aimed solely at attracting traffic to their social media platforms.
“For the avoidance of doubt and for record purposes, and in line with its statutory mandate to prevent multiple matriculations, the Board directed that all candidates registering for the 2026 UTME/DE must disclose their matriculation status, where applicable.
“It is not an offence for a candidate to register for the UTME/DE while still enrolled in an institution. However, failure to disclose such status constitutes an offence. Disclosure simply means that once a candidate secures admission through the latest registration, the former admission automatically ceases to subsist. The law is explicit that no candidate is permitted to hold two admissions concurrently.
“Furthermore, recent findings indicate that many matriculated students are engaged as professional examination takers. Mandatory disclosure therefore expedites appropriate action whenever such candidates are apprehended.
“Although the Board’s system has the capacity to detect prior matriculation, any candidate discovered to have failed to disclose such status stands the risk of forfeiting both opportunities,” he said.
JAMB, therefore, called on the public to be cautious of ‘education advocates’, who it said were perpetually eager to mislead candidates and parents for selfish gain.
