The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAM) says it has caught a fake candidate who registered for the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) 64 times with the purpose of ghost-writing the examination for 64 real candidates.

The board described the examination mercenary  as a "notorious cheat".

The board also added that no fewer than 100 examination cheats, in total, have so far been arrested by by security operatives across the country during the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

JAMB decried multiple registrations, saying they inflate annual registration for the UTME exercise by up to 30 per cent.

In its Weekly Bulletin released in Abuja on Monday by its spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said the fraudsters were engaged in multiple registrations to facilitate impersonation during the examination.

JAMB also said available data showed that the practice is prevalent in virtually all the states of the federation, including Abuja.

Among the persons arrested was a notorious cheat who had registered about 64 times in a bid to “ghost-write” for 64 candidates, the board revealed, adding that the arrest of the culprits was made possible by the comprehensive and mandatory identity checks conducted on those taking the examination, with a view to fishing out professional ghost writers before the release of the results.

JAMB also said that it had cancelled the results of two Computer Based Test centres in Abia State over “widespread irregularities” during the UTME.

It gave the names of the CBT centres as Heritage and Infinity CBT centre, and Okwyzil Computer Institute Comprehensive School Ugwunabo, Aba.

It said the drastic action was necessitated by the visual evidence obtained from a careful review of the CCTV recordings by a panel of experts engaged by the Board.

“However, in order not to unduly punish honest and hardworking candidates who found themselves attached to these two centres, the board magnanimously relocated all the candidates who had taken or were scheduled to take their examination in the two centres to other centres where they subsequently took their examinations,” it said.

JAMB apologised to innocent candidates involved in the relocation for the inconveniences they may have suffered, reaffirming its commitment to providing equal opportunity to all candidates

to articulate their hopes and aspirations.

The body said that all the results of the examination sessions conducted by the Board in the two centres from April 11 to 18 were null and void.