Loveth Adam’s future was bright in 2018 when she was admitted to study Anatomy at the Ambrose Ali University (AAU) in Edo State, South-South Nigeria. Like most Nigerian students, she hoped to graduate in 2022 and join many others in the labour market, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike caused a setback, leading to her graduation a year later.
Another obstacle, however, arose during the regularisation procedure by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). Also known as late application, the regularisation procedure allows students without a JAMB registration number to obtain one. This situation can occur when a student is offered university admission without a JAMB admission letter, fails to register for JAMB during the admission year, or gains admission through diploma programs or other pre-degree courses.
Loveth had received admission through her university, but there was no such notification from JAMB. “I returned to the JAMB office in Edo state in January 2024 to rectify it, but they said their focus was on upcoming students, and they told us to return in February or March,” she recalled.
The arrangement did not lay Loveth’s mind to rest, she was anxious that she may not be able to go for her National Youth Service (NYSC) on time if the problem persisted. She even considered going to a JAMB office in a different state, but before she could arrange that, a new solution came through an acquaintance.
A classmate told her about somebody handling the regularisation for students in Abuja, removing the hassle of moving from state to state for the same purpose. When Loveth reached out, the man asked her to pay ₦50,000, which was above her budget; she negotiated for ₦45,000.
“He told me his services were cheap as others were charging much higher,” Loveth said. She would later learn about others getting the same service for ₦80,000 and above. The man in question claimed to have direct contact with the person in charge of handling issues like this in the JAMB headquarters in Abuja, and with the right price, he could set it right.
The regularisation seemed valid at first, as she got her admission letter and her name was added to the matriculation list. However, things got complicated a few months later. “I tried to log into my portal, but I couldn’t access it, and my name was taken off the matriculation list, meaning that my school couldn’t load my JAMB details on the NYSC portal. And I couldn’t go for service,” she said.
Her registration number was flagged, and even though her name was on the matriculation list, it started reflecting as a fake admission before it was eventually removed completely.
JAMB’s spokesperson Fabien Benjamin claimed that they had “stopped doing regularisation a long time ago; what we do now is condonement, and condonement also stopped as far back as 2021.” However, students like Loveth claimed that, as of late 2024, they were still going through the process, which showed on the portal as “Application for Condonement of Undisclosed Illegal Institutional Admission”.
Fabien believes students with blocked portals didn’t meet the requirements, even though no in-depth explanation of what that means was given to the students. “In the first instance, there are rules and regulations for admission, and we made it clear that if you get admission through the backdoor, you are doing that at your own risk; it’s just like somebody buying a stolen product and then saying it is not recognised,” the spokesperson told HumAngle. He also recognised the role schools have to play in this issue. “The school will have to recognise they are students. The schools are also involved.”
Fabian revealed in a report that a one-month deadline starting from 1st August 2024 was given to institutions to disclose the details of all admissions done outside the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) before 2017. He noted that nondisclosure would lead to nonrecognition of said admissions to curb “illegal admissions and falsification of records while ensuring compliance with the provisions of CAPS.”
Loveth desperately contacted the man who helped her again but was told there was nothing he could do. He then directed her to a WhatsApp group chat with hundreds of students with similar problems. Later, she realised that the person who worked on her issue was not authorised to give admissions. HumAngle tried reaching out to the man for comment, but he refused to respond.
Shortly after that, Loveth heard stories about JAMB arresting people in an attempt to make them expose the people who had been doing the regularisation unofficially.
“If we discover there are irregularities and illegalities, you will be arrested. We arrested some officials of some schools; you cannot benefit from an irregularity. Why won’t we arrest you? Certainly, we will arrest you. If you break a rule, you know what happens when you break a rule. Those that have the power to persecute will know what to do,” the JAMB spokesperson said.
“When we kept returning to the JAMB office to complain after we followed the procedure they gave and it didn’t work out, all they did was ignore us; they gave false promises or advised us to move on with our lives,” Loveth added.
The office gave some students forms to fill out their details in September 2024, which included how they got their regularisation done in the first place. They promised to fix the issue, but the students are still waiting as nothing has been done.
Loveth first suspected that one of the reasons she and many others in her school got affected was the existing problem between her school and JAMB, which involves the school over-admitting students. However, after meeting students from other universities with the same problem, she was convinced that that wasn’t the only problem.
AAU tends to over-admit students; in her set alone, they had over a thousand students studying medicine. The school claims to have only 200 students in the Medical Association, pushing the Medical Lab Science students to organise a peaceful protest at the Edo State Government House on Feb. 24. The school also asked students to pay ₦7,000 for the regularisation, but the issue wasn’t solved, and students said they received no explanation.
A 2024 survey conducted in Nigerian tertiary institutions showed that 88 institutions conducted admissions in contravention of CAPS. Before that, warnings were issued to institutions in 2020 about offering admissions to students outside the system.
The financial impact of this issue did not just affect the students that paid for the regularisation to be done; many also sent student representatives to the JAMB headquarters in Abuja, but they came back with no solutions.
“Some of the people in the group are still students. Most of us graduated two years ago, and to the best of my knowledge, there should be thousands of people like us across the country,” she told HumAngle.
In a last-ditch effort, the students reached out to the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in 2024. NANS proposed a plan to support the students, which included media outreach and a trip to the Abuja headquarters. However, the plan stalled due to insufficient funding from the students, ultimately leaving them to fend for themselves once again.
“Students raised almost ₦1,000,000 to send representatives to Abuja, and even though we have heard that JAMB were still arresting the fraudulent officers who duped the students, nothing has been addressed to us again, and we have all been stuck at home. My parents are beginning to ask questions,” Loveth added.
A different tale
Some people like Irene Joseph* had only followed the due process set out by JAMB but still found themselves stuck in the same helpless situation. Irene gained admission to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, in 2017 through the JAMB central system.
After her graduation in 2023, she went to the JAMB office in the same state to do her regularisation. Things seemed to move well, and she completed the process, but shortly after, the story changed.
“I checked back on my portal to print out my JAMB admission a month later so I can submit it to my school for my service only to realise my portal was blocked,” she said. This happened in April 2024. Confused and worried, Irene reached out to the JAMB office, but nothing was done, which eventually led her to the group chat created by students with the same issue across the country.
“Nothing has been done as they claimed that they are still investigating the matter, wasting the future of many Nigerian students,” she lamented.
Fabien insisted that students facing this problem are likely those who got admission illegally. “People think that once you get admission through the back door, you can just go and apply for condonement. There are requirements, and if you don’t meet the requirements, it will not be approved.”
When asked about students like Irene whose admission was validated by both their universities and JAMB, he said: “If they followed due process, they won’t be applying for condonement. You can only regularise something that is not normal.”
Irene was offered Home Economics Education via the JAMB central system, but she switched to Social Work, following the university guidelines. All she needed to do was regularise that to reflect on her JAMB portal, which she did.
“My admission was legal because it was clearly showing on my JAMB portal that I was given admission. Even the JAMB official at the Enugu office that did the regularisation for me can testify; he helped me regularise to social work before my portal was blocked. I took no short cuts,” she complained.
She made personal efforts after her portal was closed, like contacting the UNN ITC, where they assured her they were working on it, as many of their students were also affected. The students in the group she was part of also sent a letter to the Minister of Education and JAMB registrar to get them to intervene on their behalf.
“We also included NANS and some media houses about these pressing problems, but absolutely nothing significant has been done, which is quite appalling. I didn’t even know about JAMB flagging down portals due to accusations of illegalities,” she said.
Irene learnt about the group in 2024 on X when someone saw a post she made about the issue. The person messaged her and connected her to the group chat filled with many people like her but this didn’t provide the results she expected despite their collective efforts.