The House of Representatives has called on the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to suspend the policy of National Identification Number (NIN) as a requirement for candidates intending to register for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)

This followed a motion presented by Zainab Gimba (APC, Borno) who called on JAMB to review the policy on the use of NIN for prospective applicants until 2021.

According to her,  it was necessary for JAMB to review the timeline pending the establishment of more enrolment centres by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) across the country. 

She further stated that although many Nigerians turned out to be captured by NIMC, most have not been able to do so due to infrastructural challenges like poor network, power failure, no power supply and sometimes inadequate manpower or equipment to attend to them. she mentioned that an official of NIMC recently disclosed that less than 20 percent of Nigerians are captured in their database.

The lawmaker urged the board to extend the use of the national ID  “in order to allow more time and better awareness for prospective candidates as many prospective candidates from remote locations in the country may not be able to register for the UTME due to non-registration with the NIMC. 

She suggested that JAMB should collaborate more with NIMC, states and local governments for efficient registration of its prospective candidates.