Olajide Osoba, Abeokuta
No fewer than three hundred secondary school students who are prospective candidates of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination in Ogun State stormed National Management Commission, NIMC and protested against failure of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to capture their bio-metric needed to sit for the examination.
The protesters, mostly teenagers were armed with fresh leaves cut from the trees’ branch and chanted “aluta” songs like “we no go gree o; we no go gree; we no go gree”, to express their anger against NIMC management which refused to capture their bio-metric on the ground that there was no electricity.
The teenagers trekked majir streets of the metropolis from the NIMC’s promises located at Oke – Mosan axis of Abeokuta till they converged at the Oke – Ilewo headquarters of the Nigeria Union if Journalists, which is about a kilometer where they spoke with the press.
The students, who stormed the NUJ Secretariat lamented that staff of the NIMC refused to attend to them due to poor electicity supply and as such, could not obtain their respective National Identity Card, a prerequisite for all potential candidates of the year 2020 Unified Matriculation Examination.
The protesters however, appealed to the federal government to order JAMB authority either extend the date earlier slated for the exams, or immediate suspension of the use of the National ID card for the exams if the problem would persist.
One of the students, who spoke with journalists in an emotionally laden and dejected voice un behalf of others, Ewetade Gbolawon who explained that the situation was horrible as most of them have been visiting the center since last week without result.
“We have been coming since last week and what they keep telling us is that there is no fuel in their generator. Now we don’t know what to do. I have been here since 5:am. They complained that government did not supply fund for them to generate power.”
“Without this number we cannot do anything. The government should remove the NIN as the requirements if they cannot provide electricity for NIMC”.
Meanwhile, all efforts at getting the NIMC’s management to react to the allegation proved abortive, as the head of operation at the commission’s Abeokuta office could not be reached on phone.
