How JAMB lost 10bn to Fraudster – Oloyede

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has said that the board lost about N10 million in 2020 to fraudsters.

Prof. Oloyede made this known while attending to newsmen at the boards headquarters on Wednesday in Abuja. He stressed further saying that fraudsters penetrated the payment portal of the board for ad-hoc staff.

Further laying claims, he noted that the money was meant to clear the arrears of JAMB Adhoc staff from the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination but was hijacked by the suspected fraudsters.

Oloyede, however, said that the board is Investigating the illegality and at the moment about 10 suspects have been apprehended in Kaduna, Nassarawa, and Abuja.

“We did not ask anyone to apply to be an ad-hoc staff on the site, we had already chosen them through recommendations from various agencies.

“We only created the site just to pay them via a code that was assigned to them.

“However, these suspects gained access to the site, deleted the original account details and phone numbers, and inserted theirs.

“We paid N20, 000 each for accommodation per night and N100, 000 for flight tickets, depending on the location of each staff to go and work for that period.

“The payments ranged from N200, 000 to over N300, 000 per person. Yet, these suspected fraudsters after gaining access to the websites also inserted details for their family members.

“They didn’t go to partake in the exercise but ignored the messages sent from our domain.

“One of them, Saidu Zubairu collected over N3.7 million for himself because he inserted the account details of his mother, sisters, and other family members.

“We have not calculated all the monies they all have so far received but altogether, the amount will definitely sum up to more than N10 million.

“We have already paid the original owners, though it took us over a year to track the suspects, we finally apprehended them and I assure you the law will take its cause.’’

The Registrar reiterated the board’s readiness to reduce to the barest level corrupt practices in its system, adding that within the shorter that he assumed office there have been changes in the board’s mode of operations.