JAMB Busts 585 Fake A-Level Certificates; 4 Suspects Arrested in Major Admission Scam!

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) announced that it had discovered 585 phony A-level certificates in 2025 alone, with four suspects already taken into custody by the police. The Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made this shocking revelation during a virtual meeting with board staff on April 2, 2025, in advance of the 2025 Mock-UTME and UTME. A transcript of the meeting was published in the JAMB weekly bulletin, which The PUNCH was able to obtain on Monday.

The Nigeria Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System was created as a platform for organizing and gathering data pertaining to post-secondary education in the nation in order to combat the alarming incidence of phony A/L certificates, he said.

He pointed out that the Professional Registration Centers’ upload of 13 of these fraudulent IJMB certificates, which are under investigation, was even more concerning and heartbreaking. According to him, four of the criminals in the 13 cases the police are looking into have been caught and are now helping the police and other authorities catch the ringleaders of these examination cartels. However, he said that the investigation found that the institutions’ internal collaborators were complicit in this egregious misbehavior.

“The registrar also revealed that some CBTs had reported extortion of candidates for services that were supposed to be free, adding that this astounding discovery was not good for the system.” Therefore, he urged employees to be dedicated to their work and discouraged behavior that would compromise the board’s integrity.