Policemen Shoot At Protesting JAMB 2015 UTME Candidates

Aggrieved Candidates in Jos wishing to sit Tuesday Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board on wednesday sustained various injuries when policemen fire shots and teargas at them.

The candidates as gathered were protesting over the inability of the board to release their examination slips.

The students gathered at the Muritala Mohammed Way office of JAMB following announcements that they could collect the details of their examination centres from the board.

Our correspondent gathered that the students were asked by JAMB officials to leave their slips and come later to collect their details.

It was learnt that the authorities were overwhelmed by the number of students, who converged on the office, coupled with the slow pace of processing of the information.

The students were said to have become restive when their examination details appeared not to be in sight.

In the confusion that ensued, the officials closed their offices and asked the candidates to come back on Thursday.

This predisposed the applicants to start vandalizing doors and windows of the offices.

Following the unruly behaviour of the applicants, policemen were called in to maintain law and order.

The policemen were said to have shot sporadically into the air and released teargas at the candidates, an action that made the candidates scamper in different directions, leaving some injured and requiring medical attention.

One of the candidates, who identified herself as Kemi, expressed dismay at the development, saying the officials were endangering the applicants’ lives.

She faulted JAMB for choosing its office as the only centre to get the information instead of decentralising the process.

She said many students might have been knocked down by motorists fleeing from the gunshots.

She said, “The huge number of candidates at the office is enough to attract any suicide bomber and in the event of any such incident, the casualties would be monumental.”

Another candidates who preferred anonymity said “They shot at us, teargassed us, shot live bullets at us. It is sad that they shot at us. We came to reprint our JAMB exam slip. The police cannot do this to us,” he said.

Police Public Relations Officer, Plateau State Police Command, Emmanuel Abuh, told our correspondent that the police were called in to maintain law and order after the candidates became riotous.

FOR LATEST UPDATES ON JAMB CLICK HERE