The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has exposed a new form of examination fraud involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, revealed in Abuja that over 1,500 candidates in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) falsely declared themselves as albinos to bypass the board’s facial recognition system.
Oloyede explained that fraudsters used AI to blend facial features of two people, creating fake images that resembled albinos. This was done to trick biometric checks that are usually stricter on non-albino candidates. “They are not albinos. The AI blends the pictures so they can cheat the system by claiming albinism,” he said.
The fraud was uncovered after unusual registration patterns raised suspicion. “We have never recorded even up to 100 albino candidates before, but this year, we found 1,787,” the Registrar said. Alarm bells rang when a single registration center recorded 450 self-declared albino candidates—a figure deemed impossible.
One suspect’s confession helped expose the scam, leading to further investigations. Genuine albino candidates for the 2025 exam were confirmed to be less than 250 nationwide. Oloyede also highlighted a case in Benin City, Edo State, where a dark-skinned man was caught pretending to be albino.
The JAMB Registrar warned that AI technology is now being used to aid impersonation by blending photos, making it harder to detect fraud. “They take pictures of two people and blend them so the image looks like the candidate,” he said.
JAMB is tightening its biometric verification and vows to prosecute all offenders to protect the integrity of the exam.
