Over N10 million meant to be paid to ad-hoc staff of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, as allowance has been hijacked into the accounts of over a dozen fraudsters who gained entry into the internet site of the board. To this end, the board has said the mobile phone would henceforth be the only major requirement for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, and Direct Entry, DE registration processes.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed that the use of email is no longer required for the registration exercise explained that the new system was to ensure that candidates’ information is not exposed to dubious cyber cafe operators and other criminal elements.
Oloyede, who disclosed this to newsmen, Wednesday, in Abuja, said the fraudsters altered profiles of the board’s ad hoc staff, diverting the money meant for their allowances.
According to him, the rip-off turned into uncovered after the board undertook a careful investigation, leading to the arrest of one Sahabi Zubairu from Takum in Taraba State, and numerous others.
Explaining that government coverage “requires that monies supposed for ad-hoc body of workers are paid immediately into the bills of the beneficiaries”, he regretted that the scenario gave room to the challenge the board became encountering.
He decried the failure of the accounting department to locate the fraud by means of move-checking the names at the bills to make sure that they tallied with those indexed on the website or owners of the codes.
The JAMB boss who mentioned that advert-hoc personnel of the board have since been paid, but, assured that the stolen money may be recovered, as he vowed handy perpetrators of the crime over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for further investigation and prosecution.
On how the fraudsters successfully gained access to the profiles of the ad-hoc team of workers, he defined that the fraudsters used key logger, a software program that allows get admission to to the profile of each person who has logged in the usage of a public cybercafé even after the man or woman has logged out and gone.
Oloyede stated Zubairu deleted the names of the unique ad hoc workforce and their phone numbers and substituted them along with his, adding that those affected consist of code number 313 and 312, among others.
At least ten of the scammers paraded by means of JAMB earlier than newshounds at its headquarters, in Bwari, Abuja, admitted to the crime announcing they were lured into it through Zubairu.
They alleged fraud syndicate ploughed into the site web hosting the facts of all JAMB advert-hoc personnel and changed their account details and contact numbers, diverting several million supposed for the payment in their allowances.
While narrating how he executed the crime, the alleged kingpin, Zubairu, said a friend of his, called Samuel Tanko, who's now at large, added him to the website and furnished him with a code to use as a JAMB ad hoc staff after they met at Saltee Cybercafé in Takum in which he is living.
He however cited that what he did turned into not an utility however a a success alteration of the account info and get in touch with numbers of the authentic owners of the code indexed at the web site, who were published throughout the us of a by way of JAMB.
It turned into accrued that a few victims of the fraud include a group of workers of the National Universities Commission, NUC, Mr Babangida Mohammed and one Fatima Mohammed, amongst several others.
Zubairu confessed that he lured a least 12 people into the crime, a number of whom are his family individuals, adding that he obtained over N400,000 diverted into his account.
One of the alleged culprits, Nasiru Mohammed, said he acquired the sum of N220,000 payment from JAMB even as others said they got among 286,000 to N440,000.
Both culprits pleaded for leniency and pledged in no way to take pleasure in such unwholesome acts once more.
Meanwhile, Oloyede has warned Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, applicants no longer to provide their telephones to all people as they may thieve their information and divert their codes, messages and calls.
He gave the caution after a 400 stage Economics pupil of the University of Abuja, Adegoke Justina, had her code modified by using a cybercafé operator and diverted all her verbal exchange with JAMB to him.
Narrating her ordeal, Adegoke stated she went to a cyber café to open an e-mail so as to finish the regularisation in JAMB but the café operator, recognized as one David Ahmed, a mass communication scholar at Auchi Polytechnic, now at huge, hacked into her e-mail, modified its password and diverted her code so that any message despatched to her with the aid of JAMB changed into received through him.
She said whenever she wanted to get in touch with JAMB the operator will realize, including that he commenced stressful monies from her however she refused to pay and the café operator threatened to deal with her till she determined to visit JAMB headquarters herself to type out the difficulty.
Reacting to the improvement, Oloyede cited that some of the applicants were virtual illiterates and cybercafé operators were using that advantage to defraud them.
He stated the board has performed strategic adjustments to ensure that e mail deal with became not a demand for registration to shop applicants from the entice of fraudulent café operators.
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