UTME: ‘I Was Told Someone Used My Number’ — Parents, Candidates Lament Stressful Registration Process

Some parents and candidates who are not finding it easy registering for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) have shared their plights with THE WHISTLER.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) recently announced that registration for the 2023 UTME would take place from January 14th to February 14th.

The computer-based examination is scheduled to be held between 29th April 2023 and 12th May 2023.

Candidates who wish to sit for the examination are required to create individual profiles before registering, which JAMB stated in the last edition of its weekly bulletin.

“To create a profile, candidates will send their national identification number (NIN) by text (SMS) to either 55019 or 66019 from their personal GSM number.

“Every candidate would be required to use a unique phone (mobile) number (SIM) for the process of registration. This, in essence, means that the unique phone number can only be used by one candidate.

“Candidates are also to note that this number (SIM) remains their unique identification for all their subsequent transactions with the Board,” it said.

The candidates will then receive a code which is the confirmation that a profile has been created successfully.

After which, they can proceed to a JAMB-accredited centre to complete the registration process.

THE WHISTLER spoke to some prospective candidates and their parents who are going through the process of registering for the examination on what it has been like for them.

Mrs. Emem, whose son is a prospective candidate for the UTME, said the process has been anything but smooth, specifically the creation of a profile.

“It has been very terrible for me, just difficult and confusing. My issue has been with the profile creation,” she said.

While seeking assistance from professionals at Globenet graphics limited, a cyber-cafe located around Second Avenue in Gwarinpa, she explained how she was unable to create the profile for her son using either of the 5- digit SMS numbers as directed by JAMB.

“The profile creation is not easy at all; the NIN requirement is not even a problem. When I tried to create the profile with my phone, I received a message that someone has already used my number on the platform and I was just wondering how someone else could have used my number when none of my children have written JAMB before.

“The person that supposedly used my number to register, how would they receive the information when they don’t know me?

“In fact, I met a little girl at the bank yesterday, who told me she was having the same problem and the profile creation wasn’t working for her too,” she said.

Emem said she drove around throughout the previous day searching for a place to do the registration and since there was no accredited centre in Gwarinpa, she had to go to Life Camp.

“I was driving around yesterday from 1 pm till 4 pm searching for somewhere to do it, and that was how I found out that there is no registration centre here in Gwarinpa.

“Then I was directed to JC Best International School in Life-Camp and when I got there, they said they don’t assist with the profile creation, that I’m supposed to do that and then bring the code to complete the registration there,” she explained.

She added that she eventually located Globenet where she was told that she could use her email address to create the profile as an alternative since her phone number was not working.

“Now I’m here again still on this issue, and when I finish here I’m going back to JC Best to go and finish up the registration. Why do they stress people like this?

“We have tried using the email address to create the profile but we’re still waiting to get the message we’re supposed to receive to proceed,” she complained.

Peter, who is also a UTME candidate, said he has been able to register successfully, however similar to Mrs. Emem’s situation, he was unable to use his phone number because he was told it had been used by someone else.

“The process was straightforward for me actually except when I was trying to do the profile creation.

“I tried multiple times to register with my phone number but it didn’t work, I kept receiving a message that my number has been used by someone else, which was very confusing because nobody has ever used my number to register for JAMB before. I ended up using my mother’s number to generate the profile code and create the profile. After that, I just went to one of the centres and completed the registration,” he said.

Mrs. Solomon narrated her experience while helping her son to register for the exam, saying that it was not so difficult, however, they made a mistake while creating the profile which elongated the entire process for them.

“The registration process was not so difficult for us, but because we made a mistake it made the process longer. The prompt said we were supposed to just put the user’s NIN, which is the NIN of the person registering for the exam which is my son, but at the centre where we were registering, they told him to type out the word user, and then put his NIN, so that caused an issue for us.

“We ended up having to go to the JAMB office to rectify the problem. There, we met an official who detected the problem, so they had to isolate his issue and resolve it. After the resolution, we were supposed to receive the code after the profile creation but we didn’t receive it until two days later,” she said.