Nigeria’s Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has made biometric identity verification mandatory for the 1.99 million 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates to enter examination centers for this April’s standardized test..  JAMB registrar Professor Ishaq Oloyede said increasing threat of identity fraud during the UTME forced the board to make biometric verification the only mode for admittance of candidates into the examination centers.

“Any candidate that cannot be verified by the Biometric Verification Mode must not be allowed to take the examination under any guise,” warned Oloyede. “All candidates whose fingerprints could not be captured during registration from centers across the country were brought to JAMB Headquarters and were registered appropriately. In other words, exemption mode is not allowed for any candidate. Therefore, no biometric verification, no examination.”