The state ministry of education has released a 68-year-old retired permanent secretary and more than 140 other people who were caught impersonating during the Anambra State teachers recruitment Computer Based Test (CBT) examination on Saturday, June 18. This was done in violation of the Examination Malpractice Act.
After beginning on Saturday, June 4, the CBT exam was later canceled due to website malfunction that was reportedly caused by a suspected cyber-attack only 30 minutes into the test.
About 1000 teachers employed by the former governor Willie Obiano and members of the Parents, Teachers Association (PTA), who were protesting their dismissal by the government of Governor Chukwuma Soludo, were blamed by the state’s commissioner of education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, for the cyberattack.
The education commissioner told SaharaReporters over the phone that the 68-year-old retired Permanent Secretary in the state—she omitted his name—presented an affidavit stating that he was 38 years old.
She claimed that the man insisted on taking the test until she requested permission from the invigilating supervisors.
“The man entered, unaware that we were watching him. The invigilating supervisor called me and said that the man was up to something, but I told him to wait, that I would catch him,” she said. “He wrote the first one and logged in for the second one.
The man was apprehended, according to the commissioner, while attempting to write the second exam; he later claimed to be a senior citizen. But when pressed on the matter, he explained that he was impersonating one of his three children because his wife had been running late and he was living alone.
“When I questioned him about whether what he did was appropriate given his age, he insisted that we allow him to take the exam. More than 146 impersonators were caught by us.
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When asked what happened to the 68-year-old man and the other impersonators discovered during the exam, she responded that they were prevented from taking the test but were released.
“We released them but forbade them from writing. We then asked the elderly man to leave after removing the first letter he had written to his daughter from history.
In the meantime, Section 3 (2a-c) of the Examination Malpractice Act 1999 No. 33 said about impersonation, “A person convicted of an offense under subsection (1) of this section is liable on conviction to a fine of N100,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both such fine and imprisonment in the case of a person under the age of 18.”
