The House of Representatives has initiated an investigation into a technical glitch that allegedly caused mass failure in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
This move followed a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Adewale Adebayo, representing Osun State.
According to results released on May 9, over 78% of candidates scored below 200 out of 400, prompting national outrage and calls for the resignation of JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede.
JAMB later admitted to a “technical error” after an internal review. At a press briefing in Abuja, Prof. Oloyede took responsibility and disclosed that 379,997 candidates were affected.
The issue, he explained, was due to server failures in JAMB’s Lagos and South-East zones, which disrupted the upload of candidate responses during the exam’s first three days.
The fault was linked to one of JAMB’s technical service providers and went undetected before results were published.
To address the situation, JAMB has scheduled a makeup exam for the affected candidates from May 16 to 19.
The incident sparked widespread criticism on social media, with many Nigerians raising concerns about the credibility of the exam process.
In the House session, Adebayo highlighted the hardships candidates faced, including long-distance travel and associated costs.
Sada Soli, representing Jibia/Kaita Federal Constituency in Katsina, commended the Registrar for publicly owning up to the error and lauded his efforts to strengthen JAMB’s finances.
However, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas stated that the committee’s investigation would determine whether JAMB’s leadership merits commendation.
The motion was unanimously adopted. The House also urged the federal government to establish Computer-Based Test (CBT) centers in all local government areas to prevent future occurrences.
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