Police fire shots at protesting UTME candidates
Tertiary Matriculation Examination escaped death in
Jos after they were fired at by policemen called to
maintain law and order.
This happened on Wednesday after they went
berserk following the inability of the authorities to
release examination slips to them.
The candidates had gathered at the Murtala
Mohammed Way office of the Joint Admission and
Matriculation Board following announcements that
they should come for the details of their examination
centres.
One of our correspondents gathered that the
candidates were asked by JAMB officials to leave
their slips and come back later to collect their details.
However, the authorities were overwhelmed by the
sheer number of students who had converged on the
office.
The candidates were said to have become restive
when the staff of JAMB were very slow in releasing
the slips to them.
In the confusion that ensued, the officials closed their
offices and asked the candidates to come back the
next day. At this juncture, they became enraged and
started smashing doors and windows of the offices.
The policemen were said to have fired gunshots in
the air to disperse the candidates.
One of the candidates, who identified herself as
Kemi, expressed dismay at the development, saying
that the officials were endangering their lives. She
said JAMB had chosen its office as the only centre to
get the information instead of decentralising to other
business centres.
She said many students would have been knocked
down by motorists fleeing from the gunshots.
She said, "The huge number of candidates at the
office was enough to attract any suicide bomber and
in the event of any such incident, the casualties
would be monumental."
The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Emmanuel
Abuh, told one of our correspondents that the police
were called to maintain law and order after the
candidates became riotous.
He said, "The police only dispersed them because
they constituted a great danger to motorists because
the office is located at a major highway."
Also, pandemonium engulfed the office of JAMB in
Lokoja, the Kogi State capital and the College of
Education, Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, as a result
of protests by the candidates and students
respectively.
While scores of candidates in Lokoja protested
against the alleged plan by JAMB workers to cheat
them by demanding extra charges than the stipulated
fees, the students in Ilorin on Wednesday made
attempts to disrupt examinations being taken by their
colleagues.
Our correspondent gathered that some people had
accused some workers in JAMB office in Lokoja of
demanding more than the prescribed fees.
It was gathered on Wednesday that the aggrieved
candidates stormed JAMB office in Phase 2 Lokoja
and engaged the JAMB officials in a free for all which
led to the collapse of the entrance gate.
One of the candidates, who spoke to journalists in
Lokoja on condition of anonymity, said during the
time they were purchasing the forms, JAMB officials
allegedly demanded extra fee of N700.
He said, "Ordinarily we can do the registration online
from any internet-based platform, but because they
wanted to extort that N700 from each of the
candidates, they gave the order.
"When it was time to check for our centres and get
the print outs for Saturday computer-based test, they
asked us to pay the money."
The state JAMB Coordinator, Mr. Daniel Agbo, was
said to have sought the assistance of officials of the
Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to bring the
situation under control.
When PUNCH Metro visited JAMB office, a lady, who
declined to disclose her name, but said she was a
JAMB worker, said Agbo was not in office.
In Ilorin, the rampaging students disrupted the
examinations being taken by their colleagues and
other academic activities. They also obstructed the
free flow of traffic on Ilorin General Hospital to Saw
Mill Road.
Some of the students, who spoke with journalists in
Ilorin, but declined to mention their names, said they
embarked on the protest because some students
were ejected from the examination hall for not
paying certain levy of N4,500 called, "Course form
fee".
They further alleged that the protest was triggered off
when some of them who had paid their schools fees
were sent out of examination hall for not paying the
course form levy.
But the Rector of the college, Dr. Isiaka Opobiyi, said
the protesters had not paid their school fees and
attempted to prevent those who had paid from taking
their examinations.
He said, "The members of the school management
are managing the situation."
0 Comments: