Mudathir Hayatullahi Folorunsho writes,
On Monday, 05th of September, 2022, a report was published on a blog named “School Beginner”, with a claim that Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, (UDUS), has announced the sale of Post UTME form for the 2020/2023 academic session for undergraduate programs.
This fake news has been shared across WhatsApp groups by a student of UDUS who is identified as Abdullahi Akorede, also known as (Solution).
The published report claims that the 2022 UDUS screening registration form will begin officially on 6th September 2022 and ends on 6th October 2022 on the udusok.edu.ng website.
This report has misled the UDUS UTME applicants to believe that the school has announced the date for the opening and closing of the POST UTME form in UDUS.
The Claims
The claims published by a blogger, Ofa Joseph read thus:
1. “The management of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDUSOK) has announced 6th September 2022 as the latest commencement date for the sales of the 2022/2023 Post UTME Screening Application form.”
2. “The management of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDUSOK) has announced Two Thousand Naira (N2,000) as the latest cost Price for the 2022 Post UTME form.”
3. “The management of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDUSOK) has announced 6th October 2022 as the latest closing date for the 2022/2023 UDUSOK Post UTME online registration/screening.”
PEN PRESS Findings
Checks by PEN PRESS UDUS reveals that the post published by the blogger “School Beginner” and shared by Abdullahi Akorede (Solution) to different WhatsApp groups is Fake and Misleading.
The findings by PEN PRESS UDUS show that Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto has not yet announced the date for the commencement of sales of the Post UTME form for the 2022/2023 academic session. The school is presently running its 2020/2021 academic session and the next academic session shall be 2021/2022, and not 2022/2023 as claimed in the report.
Also, the last academic session that UDUS conducted Post UTME examination for her UTME applicants was in the year 2015, and the selling of the UTME form and conducting of the Post UTME have been scrapped afterwards. The school has stopped admitting students through the conduct of Post UTME and the admission is being conducted now through the JAMB Central Admission Processing System (CAPS), a platform introduced by JAMB to ensure transparency in giving admission into our tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Further findings also disclosed that UDUS doesn’t announce N2000 as the cost price for the 2022 Post UTME form. It will be recalled that since UDUS started to conduct physical screening for her admitted students, the payment of acceptance and screening fees are being paid together.
The students admitted into the current 2020/2021 academic session paid the acceptance fee of N7,000, screening fee of N2,000, T-ship fee of N2,000, and ID card fee of N2,000 which amount to 13,000 altogether, being paid by each candidate as soon as the school offers them admission.
Further verification also indicated that since no date has been communicated by UDUS for the commencement of sales of the 2022 Post UTME form, the 6th of October 2022 has not been announced for its closing date as claimed by “school beginner”, because UDUS has not run its 2021 academic session yet.
When PEN PRESS contacted Abdullahi Akorede, a student of UDUS sharing the fake news across WhatsApp groups, he said that he saw the information online and started sharing it. However, all efforts to reach Ofa Joseph, the author of the published fake post proved abortive, as questions about his source of the information were neither answered on his page comment box, nor his email.
While speaking with PEN PRESS UDUS, Mallam Shehu Abubakar, the school admission officer debunked the information published on the school beginner website by Ofa Joseph and shared by Akorede.
He confirmed that UDUS is still running the 2020 academic session and the next session shall be in 2021.
He noted that JAMB only informed the 2021 applicants to upload their O’level results on the JAMB portal, noting that the decision about the 2022 academic session has not been decided yet.
“Also, UDUS has stopped conducting Post UTME exercise for its candidates, and if it will be conducted in the next academic session which is 2021, the school will decide on that and ask us to inform the the UTME applicants, but for now, no information regarding that has been passed from the management, so the information on that platform is fake. It’s not from UDUS,” he debunked.
Verdict
PEN PRESS UDUS can conclude that the post claiming that UDUS has announced the opening and closing dates for the sales POST UTME form for the 2022/2023 academic session is INCORRECT.
Also, a claim that UDUS sells Post UTME form for N2000 is INCORRECT.