Cut-off Mark: Candidates, Parents head for Court

Parents and candidates of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, set to be stopped from sitting the forthcoming post-UTME, University of Lagos, by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, are dragging the board to the court today (Friday).

They will be praying the court to stop further sale of post-UTME form in public universities.

Hundreds of UTME candidates had on Wednesday stormed UNILAG to protest against the decision by the institution to stop them from sitting for the post-UTME.

The candidates alleged that the authorities of the university, in liaison with the JAMB, had rolled out a new admission procedure that prevented them from taking the examination to secure admission into the ivory tower.

UNILAG and JAMB had defended their different involvements in the exercise.

While the Head of Public Relations, JAMB, Dr. Benjamin Fabian, said the board did not intentionally exclude any candidate, the Registrar, UNILAG, Dr. Taiwo Ipaye, said the university was only working with the post-UTME screening list sent by JAMB, adding that only candidates whose names were forwarded to UNILAG by JAMB were eligible for the 2015/2016 post-UTME screening.

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The President, Association of Tutorial School Operators of Nigeria, Mr. Sodunke Oludotun, who led the Wednesday protest to UNILAG premises, told our correspondent in an interview that the affected parents and students had agreed to seek redress in court on the matter.

He said their lawyer would file the suit against JAMB at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi today (Friday).

Oludotun said, “We have decided to go to court. We will be in court on Friday. Mr. Femi Falana is aware. Our lawyer too is going to file the court process on Friday.

“On Friday, all the students and their parents are following us to the court in Ikoyi. We are going to protest there. On our way to the court, we are going to block the Third Mainland Bridge before getting to the court.

“Our lawyer said all the people that heard of the case in the court were very angry when he went there today (Wednesday). It is annoying. That is one step we are going to take.”

He added that the protesters would also involve Falana, a human rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria on the matter.

The protesters had on Wednesday alleged that the university raised its cut-off to 250 marks against the recommended 180 marks by JAMB.

JAMB had, on July 14, after its sixth consultative meeting with stakeholders in Abuja, pegged the cut-off mark to 180 for candidates seeking university admission and 150 marks for those seeking places in polytechnics and colleges of education.