The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, on Sunday said it would not create any special centre for the 2016 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the UTME, which will be Computer Base Test (CBT) mode all through, is expected to begin on Monday, February 29.

This is contained in a statement signed by the Head, Media and Information of the board, Fabian Benjamin.

According to the statement, the attention of the board was drawn to protests by some alleged prospective candidates in Edo and Lagos states over the closure of the board’s registration portal in preparation to the UTME.

“The board sincerely sympathises with the plight of these prospective candidates.

“It is indeed the wish of the board that the Nigerian youth desirous of tertiary education are given ample opportunity to register for its examination.

“This is why it began the sale of its application document in August 2015, which is about seven months ago.

“In the advertisement for the sale of the registration documents, the board clearly stated that the sales would close by January.

“But due to public appeal it extended the registration process to February,” the statement read in part.

The board further stated that it could not allow candidates to register perpetually, adding that it had a time table and it adheres strictly to it. It noted that this was to allow tertiary institutions to begin admission processes early.

“We all must work to enshrine the culture of discipline in the system and ensure that tertiary institutions calendars are not truncated.

“It is most unfortunate that some candidates waited until our website was withdrawn before making attempts to register,” the board stated.

It noted that every aspiring candidate was expected to know the procedure as proper publicity involving the media was done.

More than one million candidates have so far registered for the examination on the all CBT platform within and outside the country.

More than 500 centres were also accredited for the conduct of the examination within and outside Nigeria.

(NAN)