The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) will accredit 1,039 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres to conduct the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the board’s registrar, Prof. Is’haq Oloyede, has disclosed.

Speaking to newsmen in Ilorin on Wednesday during a five-day CBT centre accreditation tour, Oloyede explained that 52 examination teams have been assigned to re-accredit centres across the country.

He noted that the yearly tour is necessary to ensure examination centres meet required standards, adding, “the fact that you qualified last year could not make you qualify this year.”

The registrar said the exercise had been “so far so good,” but highlighted that some centres implicated in examination malpractice in previous years had attempted to re-enter the system. He said:

“Some centres that were implicated in examination malpractice last year, not in Kwara state, though, have repackaged themselves this year, moving from one centre to another one.

“But we have liaised with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to see that once you’re a director of a failed CBT centre, you cannot resurrect anywhere in the country. CAC has graciously granted us access to see the directors of implicated centres with their NIN, so that it will vitiate any other board you belong.

“Also, all the individual Proctors or staff who had been implicated in one place or the other cannot go elsewhere because their NIN had been identified and flagged. So, if they go elsewhere, they’re going to destroy that centre, because we’re not going to approve such centre.

“So, we’ve also moved this year to a level that once a computer set is found belonging to a centre that we’ve delisted, such computer can never come back to our own system because you can now sell it to another CBT centre or do anything with it. Once your centre or anything that’s dented in your centre, be it staff or tool, such cannot find their way back to our system.

“We’ve seen two of such lapses and we’ll investigate how they did that and take appropriate action. We’ve invited security agencies to pick one or two of such persons and investigate them because what they’ve done is not only an infraction against JAMB but an infraction against the laws of the federation,” he explained.

Prof. Veronica Mejabi, JAMB’s chief technical advisor for Kwara state, said centres must meet both hard and soft criteria.

“The most important hard rule is that the centre must implement a certain specified topology for their network in order to make troubleshooting easy. For instance, if there’s any problem in the exam, the minimum time would be taken to get back on track. Others are the provision of an inverter backup, an electricity generator in case of power failure during the exam.

“Soft criteria include holding area for students waiting to enter exam hall, toilet facilities in and outside the hall, as well as installation of CCTV in the hall for monitoring of the exam,” she stated.

Also speaking, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Wahab Egbewole (SAN), who led one of the validation teams, cautioned prospective students against examination malpractice, saying: “if you cheat, you’ll be caught and when you are caught, that’s the end.”