Breaking News: Unizik arrests 167 impersonators ,screens 28,233 candidates for Post UTME

www.odogwublog.com reports exclusively that Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka has announced the successful completion of the first stage of the 2015 Post-UTME, saying out of Thirty thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven candidates who enrolled in the University’s portal for this year’s exam, only Twenty-Eight thousand , two hundred and thirty-three turned up to be screened.
The Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Joseph Ahaneku in a statement endorsed by the University’s Director, Information and Public Relations, Dr Emmanuel Ojukwu announced that One hundred and Sixty-seven impostors impersonating some students were arrested.  
He said the apprehended impersonators have been handed to security agents and they are being processed by security agencies and will be charged to court soon, insisting that the University’s administration insists that admission into the University is on purely on merit.
The statement read in part ‘’We noticed that due to stringent processes deployed by the University, many fraudulent candidates did not turn up for the screening to avoid being detected. The university's newly acquired Biometric Data Capturing Machines were fully deployed where candidates’ finger prints were matched with what we already have on our data base. There is also physical verification of claimed documents.
‘’The shortfall of 2,244 candidates who did not present themselves for screening may not be unrelated with the stringent processes of screening which eliminated impersonation to a large extent.

‘’A breakdown of the screened candidates is as follows: 1. Day 1 – 4978 candidates Day 2 – 3745 candidates , Day 3 – 5993 candidates
Day 4 – 6298 candidates ,Day 5 – 2816 candidates ,Day 6 – 4403 candidates  and Total screened - 28,233 candidates

‘’This figure does not include affiliated institutions such as Federal College of Education Technical Umunze, Enugu State College of Education Technical, Auchi Polytechnic, and Pope John Paul II Major Seminary Okpuno. A date has not been
fixed for their screening.

Responding to the allegation of delaying of release of results the University said:‘’All candidates' results will be uploaded to the university portal. Checking of result is free. The University does not charge for checking of result. The University refrained from sending candidate's result to their phones when we
discovered that some candidates used cyber cafe phone numbers which can easily be manipulated. The results can also be viewed on the university website ( www.unizik.edu.ng).

On criticisms against the University, the statement pointed out that: ‘’ Based on investigations, it is important to reveal that some parents encourage their wards to cheat in examinations. Some of the impersonators caught revealed that some parents paid for the service. We deplore the desperation of these parents. These parents are the ones criticizing the university because they are afraid their nefarious activities will be detected. This is wrong and bad example that will lead to nowhere. Such parents should
desist.

‘’ The University administration insists that admission into the University is on purely on merit. Do not give money to anyone for admission as such money will be a waste. It is on record that some persons including staff of the University who collected money to assist candidates get admitted could not succeed last year. As a result a staff of the university
abandoned his work and ran away till today. The other one whose case was reported to the University administration has been dismissed from the university.

‘’ It is also important to inform the public that some criminals have opened facebook pages in the name of our Vice-chancellor Prof.Joseph Eberendu Ahaneku, FAS. Our vice-chancellor has no facebook account or page. Please
ignore any solicitations for favour emanating from such fake facebook pages,’’ the statement concluded.