Nigeria’s university entrance exam body, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), recently suffered a major technical glitch during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), leading to the lowest scores in the exam’s body history.
The UTME was held from April 24 to May 5, 2025, and it recorded the lowest pass rate in the exam’s history. Many students reported login failures and power outages that prevented them from properly taking the exam. These poorly managed conditions by JAMB led to widespread failure, and tragically, the suicide of Faith Opesusi, a 19 year-old candidate who took her life after scoring 146 out of 400.
The poor results and Faith’s death sparked national outrage, with many Nigerians calling on the exam body to take responsibility and offer solutions. After an internal investigation, JAMB admitted that the fault stemmed from a technical glitch within the board. According to the registrar, the board discovered discrepancies linked to faulty server updates in its Lagos and Owerri zones, which caused a failure to upload candidates’ responses during the first three days of the examination. Oloyede revealed that the problem, which was caused by one of the two technical service providers for the exercise, went undetected before the results were released. This ultimately compromised the results and contributed to the mass failure.
While many Nigerians have since called for the resignation of JAMB registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, over his lack of accountability. The question remains was it really his fault?
Oloyede Reforms
There is no denying that the JAMB failure reflects poorly on Oloyede’s administration but there is no denying his impact on the examination board sector. Prior to his time in office, the exam was conducted with pen and paper and took a lot more time to be marked and recorded. However during his regime, the Registrar brought a lot of reformslot reforms like computerizing the examination and making it CBT based. His administration also implemented several checks like biometric verification, adherence to exam schedule and prosecution of malpractice offenders.
What are people saying?
A few believe that while his recent failings have caught the eyes of the nation, there has always been some issues with results and the only reason it is coming to light is because it affects not only the masses but also candidates from wealthy homes. According to the Chairman of the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria (EWAN) and Team Lead at DevReporting, Mojeed Alabi, the problem is deeper than recent errors acknowledged by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
He said this year’s backlash only gained momentum because the performance drop affected students who were previously thought to be strong candidates.According to him, the shock this year stemmed from the profile of some of the underperforming candidates.
“Children of professors who scored very high in mock JAMB ended up with scores like 150 in the main exam. That’s what triggered public attention,” he noted. He explained that while JAMB’s admission of technical errors in some centres might have raised valid concerns, the broader issue lies in longstanding structural problems within the education system”.
This could very well be the reason the error was finally noticed. Nevertheless, there is no denying that as a third world country, we are yet to solidify our stand in the technological world and there will always be issuesissue with computer glitches. As unfortunateunfortunately as it may seem, a technical glitch might not be enough reason to call for the resignationreaignatiom of a civil servant and many share this idea.
Some lawmakers have called for the immediate cancellation of the 2025 UTME and the scheduling of a fresh exam, preferably after the conclusion of ongoing WAEC and NECO exams, to ensure no student is unfairly disadvantaged.
Others like the Civil Society and Media Group of JAMB, who monitored the just-concluded UTME examinations across Nigeria appreciated the steadfastness of JAMB officials led by its Registrar Professor Is-haq Oloyede to deliver reliabledeliver a reliable examinations to the satisfaction of all.
“The processes leading to the 2025 examinations were thorough. The mock examinations and the main examinations attest to our position. We, however, wish to add that we also noted and reported the glitches but it was difficult to ascertain its extent immediately even as we realized that absolute perfection in exercises like these may be impossible anywhere in the world.”
Notwithstanding backlash and legal threats from affected candidates, Oloyede addressed the public. In a tearful speech, he admitted fault and assured candidates that JAMB would allow them to resit the exam. However, what angered many Nigerians the most was the opening line of his speech: “Man proposes, God disposes.” For many, this felt like a deflection—an attempt to shift blame to God rather than take full responsibility.
His tears meant little to the public, especially since the damage had already been done and a life was lost due to his failure in office.
While the board’s decision to allow 379,000 candidates to resit the exam offers hope, public trust remains shaken. The new results are expected on Wednesday, May 21, and all eyes will be on them.
Professor Oloyede’s past contributions to JAMB are undeniable, but so is the gravity of this year’s failure. With a young life alllegedly lost and faith in the system badly bruised, the nation is left wondering: Should he be given the chance to fix what’s broken—or is it time for him to step down?
