By Ise-Oluwa Ige
ABUJA—An Abuja High Court has thrown out a suit filed by a consortium of companies, the Converged Examinations Management Technology Platform Consortium (CEMPT Consortium), seeking its order compelling the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board to uphold an agreement for e-registration of candidates.

Justice Sylvanus Oriji terminated the suit after holding that he did not have the jurisdiction to entertain it.

CEMPT Consortium had, in the suit, accused the Minister of Education, JAMB, the National Examinations Council, the National Business and Technical Examinations Board and the Attorney General of the Federation of breaching an agreement for the introduction of CEMPT e-registration.

The CEMPT registration system aimed at delivering best breed solutions of designated examinations in biometrics technology , registration and validation, data capture management.

The plaintiffs accused the Minister of Education of interfering with the CEMPT agreement in breach of the agreement duly entered into.

They not only  accused the minister of unjustifiably delaying the take-off of the e-registartion on the CEMPT platform, also, they accused JAMB of abandoning the e-registration on the CEMPT platform and commenced registration of its applicants on the old process by which it charged N3,650.00 for its registration alone as against the N850.00 approved for all the examinations on the CEMPT platform.

The plaintiffs also accused JAMB, NECO and NBTEB of breaching the terms of agreement when they refused to implement the terms of the principal agreement on the ground that the paper based biometrics e-registration was not acceptable to them.

In striking out the suit, Justice Oriji said that the breaches complained about by the plaintiffs were administrative actions of the defendants which could only be challenged at the Federal High Court.

The Judge said, “I do not, with due respect, agree with the submission of the learned senior counsel for the plaintiffs that the subject matter of this suit is a simple contract in respect of which this court has jurisdiction.”

A federal high court in Lagos, presided over by Justice Okechukwu Okeke, had earlier restrained JAMB from retaining the services of Sidmach Technologies Limited and Electronic Test Company Limited for the registration of candidates for the 2011 examination .

The court also barred Sidmach Technologies and Electronic Test from carrying out registration of candidates for the 2011 UTME exams or any other year pending the determination of a suit filed by some aggrieved companies.

However, Justice Okeke directed the plaintiffs to prepare an undertaking as to damages should it turn out that the orders ought not to have been made.