Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede on Wednesday presided over a press conference in Abuja during which he did a review of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and admitted shortcomings on the part of officials of the examination board.
He also talked about factors that necessitated the decision to carry out a review of the examination in question earlier than usual.
‘Without equivocation, there has been a lot of hoopla since the results of 2025 UTME were released last Friday, 9th May 2025. Despite the fact that JAMB is a responsive organisation, the unusual level of public concerns and loud complaints has prompted us to do an immediate audit or review of what happened, which we ordinarily would have done in June. I want to make it clear that our review and investigation revealed that there are grounds for the complaints about our 2025 UTME results’ he said.
Professor Oloyede also noted that necessary measures were taken to avoid ‘errors’ adding that a foolproof plan that is highly reliable and should ordinarily leave little room for error or failure was put in place ahead of the 2025 UTME.
‘I can assure you that we do scale all heights, fathom all depths and traverse all horizons to ascertain that quality assurance mechanisms permeate all our operations from the take off point to the finish line. We do burn the midnight oil and we set our standards high. This is why we have guidelines, checklists and protocol guiding our activities right from the time of registration to the points of monitoring and supervision to the processing of results.
As we know we cannot clap with our sole hand as a single entity, we have several committees in place that are part of our quality assurance system.
There are Peace Monitors, of 41 women of substance who are or have been Principal Officers of Nigerian universities; we have Chief External Examiners (CEEs), who are Vice-Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education.
Each state also has Chief Technical Adviser, a reputable professor who is an expert in computing and cybersecurity. We have Peace Monitors, Civil Society Group, Equal Opportunity Group, the General Monitors Group, High-powered Opinion Leaders, the Roving Group, Technical Advisors Group and the Virtues Vanguards. All of these groups play critical roles and complement our staff in ensuring quality and troubleshooting challenges.
Furthermore, we also have an in-house consultant and expert in software development and cybersecurity. Besides, we have introduced mock examinations since 2017 primarily as a quality assurance measure to test our systems and intervene where necessary prior to the time of our examinations, knowing the nature of technology.’ he added.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned that Professor Oloyede, who at the start of the press conference acknowledged that ‘one or two errors’ were made during the 2025 UTME, noted that about 379,997 candidates would be retaking the examination.
The JAMB Registrar also disclosed that the ‘errors’ were discovered quickly while blaming the agents tasked with getting things done on behalf of the examination board for the carelessness, negligence, and lack of concern they have exhibited.
‘Within 24 hours of rigorous work, we were able to isolate where the problem emanated from. It happened in 65 centres in Lagos and 92 centres in Owerri zone. In these centres, the patch was not properly applied in some centre servers by the service provider and that failure disrupted the upload of the candidates’ responses within the first three or four days, as applicable to Lagos and Owerri zones’ he said.
Professor Oloyede tearfully apologized for ‘the inconveniences’ on behalf of JAMB and urged the affected candidates to know that it was not deliberate or intentional.
‘I appeal to the candidates and those affected by the error of our system to accept this explanation as the truth of the matter without embellishment, PLEASE. I apologize and take full responsibility not just in words’ the JAMB Registrar, who broke down in tears, submitted.
206,610 candidates would be retaking the examination in Lagos ditto 173,387 candidates in Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Anambra states.
Professor Oloyede also noted that candidates in 65 centres in Lagos and 92 centres in Owerri Zone would be retaking the examination-Team@orientactualmags.com Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980 or get in touch via orientactualmag@gmail.com. Thank you
