From ‘Yanju Uwala
A candidate from Lagos State, Monwuba Chibuikem is said to have emerged as the best candidate at the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Monwuba scored 358, according to information contained in a document shared by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) at its policy meeting held on Tuesday.
According to the document, Qomarudeen Alabi from Osun and Adeogun Oreoluwa from Ogun jointly came second as they both scored 350.
Ajayi Isaiah from Lagos took the fourth position with a score of 349 while Okarike Kenneth from Rivers secured the fifth spot with 348.

The trio of Omonona Victor, Owoeye Oluwatimilehin, and Ehizogie Aidelogie took the sixth position with 347 while Ajeigbe Samuel and Yakubu Joshua (Edo) had 346 and 343 respectively to complete the top 10.
A breakdown of the top 10 candidates by their states of origin showed Lagos, Edo and Ekiti had the highest with two students each while Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Rivers had one each.
The gender composition of the top 10 candidates also showed that the list had nine males with only one female making the cut.

The data showed that five of the students who made the top 10 chose Covenant University as their first-choice institution of study.
Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Lagos, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka had one applicant each.
When their programmes of study were also examined, the data showed all candidates that made the top 10 applied for engineering and science courses.

Meanwhile, the board also at the meeting dropped the idea of uniform cut-off mark for institutions for the next academic session, urging the institutions to decide on their own individual cut-off mark.