The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, on Monday insisted only candidates verified through biometrics would be allowed to write next month’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, disclosed this in Abuja at the meeting of critical stakeholders on strategic planning and preparations for supervision and evaluation of administration of 2019 UTME.

The examination is slated to hold from April 11th – 18th in 708 Computer Based Test centres nationwide.

He said that biometric verification will be the only mode for admittance of candidates into the examination centres.

The registrar explained the board decided to introduce BVN for capturing the biometrics of candidates to counter the increasing threat of identity fraud during its UTME.

Mr Oloyede said candidates whose fingerprints could not be captured during registration from centres across the country were brought to JAMB headquarters and were registered appropriately.

The registrar said such candidates will have to write the UTME examination in his presence in Abuja.

He said:” Any candidate that cannot be verified by BVM must not be allowed to take the examination under any guise. BVM is the only form of attendance register.

“No Biometric Verification, No examination. Discretion is not allowed on this matter.

“All candidates whose fingerprints could not be captured during registration from centres across the country were brought to JAMB HQ and were registered appropriately. JAMB paid for their transportation for the two trips.

“They will come to JAMB HQ in Abuja to also sit for their examination and not any other centre.”

The registrar said the board has introduced new innovations for the successful conduct of the 2019 UTME.

He said: “A separate indicator had also been created for the deaf to differentiate them for special attention at the examination centre. Efforts are on to provide the option of special centres or mainstreaming for the blind.

“We now have live report on centres that registered any candidate, the time the candidate was registered, who registered the candidate, computer system used, the location of registration.

“All these are done through our enhanced monitoring system. I want to warn candidates expected to sit for its examination to ensure their biometrics were taken and verified for the examination.”

About 1,989,181 million candidates registered for the examination.