The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it has penalised some centres for preventing a hijab-wearing female UTME candidate from entering the exam hall with her headcover.
It was earlier reported that a female candidate who sat her UTME at the Bafuto Institute, Ile-Iwe Bus Stop, Ejigbo, Lagos was asked to remove her hijab during the accreditation process before being allowed into the examination hall.
In a statement issued by JAMB’s Public Communication Advisor, Dr Fabian Benjamin, the exam body disavowed any policy that forbids candidates from wearing religious items related to their faith.
Benjamin said on investigation, it was discovered that the incident or others in the past were not linked to any of its examination guidelines but rather a product of the misplaced priority of some of the Board’s accredited partners or officials who claimed ignorance of the its guidelines on accreditation.
JAMB further clarified that the affected officials acted in ignorance, which is unacceptable, as ignorance of the law has no pardon before the law.
The statement read, “This situation was instantly addressed by a senior official of the Board at the center and the candidate in question was allowed in after the usual checks with her hijab.
“However, since ignorance of the law is not an excuse, the officials have been appropriately sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to others, who might wish to toe the same line going forward.
“It is worthy of note that the Board, as a national institution, has no policy barring candidates from sporting the religious paraphernalia peculiar to their religious persuasions as these are the facts of everyday life in Nigeria, which everyone should have been familiar with by now.”
Furthermore, the Board assured the general public that the issue would be properly investigated as to prevent a recurrence.
“The Board is committed to the discharge of its statutory role of ensuring that suitably qualified candidates are selected for admission into the nation’s tertiary institutions and would not allow anything or anyone to detract it from the pursuit of this noble goal,” it reiterated.
Meanwhile, the conduct of 2024 UTME, which commenced on Friday, 19th April 2024, has been marred with reports of technical glitches as over 1.2 million candidates would have successfully taken the examination by Monday, 22nd April 2024.
