The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it will reconfirm the biometrics of all candidates who have participated in its examination in the last 10 years.

This is contained in a statement by the board’s Head, Media and Information, Fabian Benjamin, issued on Sunday in Lagos.

According to the statement, the revalidation has become necessary in a bid to detect impersonation.

Mr Benjamin said it had become a tradition, each year, for the board to be flooded with applications for correction of data after its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

He said that the board had also vowed to make public the names of impostors in order to serve as a warning to others, as well as stem the antics of ‘Professional Examination takers’.

“This step is taken as a result of the huge number of applications recorded by the board, aimed at perfecting fraudulent acts that had aided impersonation in the first instance.

“It should be noted that the board had, in recent times, been inundated with series of complaints bordering on change of names, state of origin, local government, gender, date of birth, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and subject combination of candidates.

“The board, in its attempt to block all forms of examination malpractice, has discovered that one of the ways candidates employ is professional examination writers, who register using the candidate’s name and afterwards apply for the correction of such details, along the lines listed above.

“To address this ugly trend therefore, the board has resolved to revalidate the biometrics of candidates that had taken the board’s examination to fish out these impersonators and prosecute them along with their sponsors,” the statement read.