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Over 1.16 million admission seekers have registered to sit the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and Direct Entry examinations, according to information released on Saturday by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

This was said on Saturday during a monitoring trip of a few computer-based test centers in Abuja by the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede.

During the tour, Oloyede stopped by the CBT facilities at the Total Child International School in Dutse, the JAMB Abuja zonal headquarters, Life Camp, the Global Distance Learning Institute, and Sascon International College, all in Abuja.

Additionally, he warned centers from using applicants as bargaining chips by stating that the board would not extend the registration deadline for the 2023 UTME.

The registration for the 2023 UTME commenced on January 14, 2023, and is set to end on Tuesday February 14.

Oloyede further said, “Registration is going on well except for some of these schools. UTME is not a school-based examination, it’s individual candidates and you can see what that school, Stella Maris is doing, collecting N30,000 from candidates in the name of JAMB and then end up mixing up the telephone numbers of the candidates.

“That is a way of extorting the parents and we will take adequate steps to make sure that we stop that. One of the reasons is that we will tell every CBT centre to stop doing bulk purchases of PIN and bulk registration.

“So, if a centre sells more than one PIN to a source or collects money for more than one PIN from a source then we will sanction such a centre.”

An unidentified student of the University of Cross River State, has been shot dead by gunmen at the Calabar campus of the school.

According to information, the shooters entered the school in a Toyota Sienna and immediately went to the area where the victim and his friends were.

A source said, “The incident took place right in front of me and my friends. We were strolling past the Faculty of Engineering when we saw some students sitting in a group and chatting and from nowhere, a Sienna drove towards them and one of the students stood up and ran. Some young men stepped out of the car and chased him.

“After they shot him from behind and he fell, they went close to confirm if he was dead before firing a final shot on his chest and went ahead to use his shirt to cover his face.”

The source further stated that the thugs stole his backpack, got into their car, and fled.

“We suspect one of those persons he was chatting with was providing the hoodlums information about where to locate him and when they came, he knew he was the person they were looking for, prompting him to take to his heels,” the source added.

The Public Relations Officer of the institution, Mr Onen Onen, confirmed the incident, which happened on Thursday.

“A student was shot. The VC will issue a statement about it,” he said and declined further comment.

As of the time this story was filed, SP Irene Ugbo, the state police spokesperson, did not return calls.