As the 2019 Unified Territory and Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has been released, three network providers in Nigeria have ripped off candidates of billions of Naira for using them to check their results.
The results for 2019 UTME were released on Saturday, May 11 and more than 1.8 million candidates registered for the examination.
Straightnews discovered that Airtel, MTN and Globacom are making away with at least N100 billion from the N50 service charge deducted from the candidates who accessed their 2019 UTME results through their phones via the universal code “55019.”
Angered by what is seen as “illegal deduction,” National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) warned JAMB to stop the N50 charge on students checking their results, otherwise the body would protest against such.
To souse NANS threat, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s Head, Media and Information, explained on Wednesday that the N50 service charged the candidates in the cause of checking their results does not go to the purse of the exam body but to the purse of the network providers.
Benjamin made this revelation while debunking the claims that the examination body was ripping off its candidates of the sum of N50 per session.
The media head of the exam body said that the charge deducted during every process of checking the result is actually a charge paid to the selected network provider of the candidates.
“Again, let me also state in clear terms that the N50 charged in the process of checking these results does not go to JAMB’s purse but to the various service providers,” Benjamin said.
Giving a breakdown of the total number of results checked by candidates through the various network providers, Benjamin noted that Airtel is the third after MTN and Glo with a total of 104, 970 candidates who have so far accessed their results.
Investigation shows that Airtel has made N5,284,500 from candidates who had already accessed their results via their phones using Airtel network.
Benjamin noted that Glo comes second in the highest number of candidates with a total of 190,923 candidates while MTN has the highest candidate of 888,598 who had so far accessed their results.
So far, Airtel Nigeria has made a whopping sum of over N44,429,900 from the candidates who registered with it.
Also, MTN Nigeria has made a whopping sum of over N44,429,900 from candidates who registered and participated in the examination while Globacom, better known as Glo too has made more than N9,546,150 from candidates who participated in the examination.
