FUTA clarifies controversy surrounding Jamiu Basola’s admission status

The Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) has clarified issues on the admission status of Jamiu Basola Owodunni, a Civil Engineering graduate of the institution whose admission was recently flagged as fake by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

According to a statement by FUTA’s Director of Corporate Communication, Mr Adegbenro Adebanjo, titled ‘Re: The Status of Jamiu Basola in FUTA’, Basola “was admitted into the Department of Civil Engineering of the university in the 2017/2018 academic session after passing the 2017 UTME.”

He successfully completed the five-year course, but in the course of trying to fill out the appropriate form to be mobilised for the national youth service in his final year, the JAMB declared that it never approved his admission in the first place.

He contacted JAMB and was informed that the matter would have to be investigated by the police.

According to Adebanjo, the university was invited by the police, and “all documents pertaining to his admission were presented for scrutiny.

“Thereafter, the police wrote their report and reported that it had been forwarded to JAMB Headquarters for consideration.

“The University also took the extraordinary step of writing JAMB a reminder on the issue.

“FUTA has discharged its responsibility on the matter on behalf of Jamiu Basola and waits on JAMB, which flagged his status in the first place, to resolve the matter based on the documents and information supplied to them by FUTA.”

Basola had taken to Facebook to bemoan his plight, saying that JAMB declared his admission fake seven years after he commenced his studies.

But the board, in a statement on Sunday by its Public Communication Adviser, Fabian Benjamin, insisted that it never approved Basola’s admission and that his records were not found in its Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS).

Basola had said on social media that after he was told by FUTA to verify his details on the JAMB matriculation list, which indicated fake admission, he visited the JAMB office and was told he was supposed to be handed over to the Department of State Services for investigation.

FUTA, therefore, said it awaits the board’s response on the matter, having supplied all the necessary details pertaining to Basola’s admission status.