The lawmakers noted that authorities of some higher institutions are using admission to exploit and frustrate intelligent students.

The Senate on Wednesday directed its committees on Tertiary Institutions and Public Petitions to investigate the alleged admission racketeering in higher institutions across the country.

It also mandated the committees to probe the involvement of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in the alleged racketeering.

The resolution followed a motion moved by Nwebonyi Onyeka (APC, Ebonyi North) at the plenary.

Mr Onyeka, while presenting the motion, raised concerns that some higher institutions are fond of collaborating with JAMB officials to issue uncertified admission to admission seekers.

The senator said people pay money before they are offered admission to study competitive courses such as Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy, Law, Engineering and Nursing.

He said authorities of some higher institutions are using admission to exploit and frustrate intelligent students

"The provisional admission practice is being used as a malicious tool to exploit and frustrate intelligent young Nigerians who are children and wards of ordinary people who seek admission into Nigerian universities

"These children who bestirred themselves to make good grades in their UTME are being made to pay the necessary fees, undergo the rigorous processes of registration and matriculation, resume lectures, and sometimes, even take semester examinations, only to be transferred to other less competitive courses by the universities in connivance with JAMB without any plausible explanations, thereby destroying their ambitions in the course of the unholy act of course swap", he said.

Many senators spoke and voted in support of the motion when it was put to vote by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.