The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it is yet to commence the sale of the 2020/21 Unified Tertiary 7 Examination (UTME) application forms.

The board’s Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made this known in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.

He explained that the board was still in the process of admissions and so had not commenced the sale of any form.

“There’s a guideline being circulated presently that the board will soon commence the sale of its 2020 UTME forms in January, while others even said it had commenced already.

“This is not true because we have not rolled out our forms for sale yet; admissions into tertiary institutions are still ongoing and have not closed yet because we work with a calendar.

“Nigerians should disregard all that is presently being circulated, it is all the antics of fraudsters who want to hoodwink the unsuspecting public and dupe them of their hard-earned income.

“When we commence the sale, we have our official channels like our Twitter handle to pass the information and would also advertise to let the public be aware,’’ he said.

NAN recalls that the board had earlier stated that the first choice admission for public universities, which commenced from Aug. 2, would last till Nov. 16.

It also stated that admissions into private universities which commenced from Aug. 21 would end on Feb. 15, 2020, while the second choice admissions for public universities would begin from Nov. 17 to Dec. 17.

On the need for prospective applicants to acquire a National Identification Number (NIN) before registering for the examination, Benjamin said that the board was still in the process of initiating the plan.

He explained that the board was still in talks with the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) and making necessary arrangements to initiate the plan on the NIMC platform.

He further said that once the process was finished and all in place, the board would issue out a statement to pass the necessary information to the public so they know how to go about it.

Benjamin also urged all and sundry to embrace the new decision for the progress of a smooth security process.

“Our partnership with NIMC is not a unilateral decision by the board.

“It is the directive by the Federal Government that NIMC is the sole agency of data collection; therefore, we must work with them to ensure the mandate for which they were established.

“Yes, people may go through one or two challenges in the process but that is the price we have to pay as a nation in order to address some of the challenges before us.

“We must know that for every policy direction that prospects addressing security challenges, the start is always difficult but as soon as we get it right, we begin to enjoy the benefit.

“There is no better time to start but now, we cannot continue to postpone, ’’ Benjamin stated. (NAN)

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