Matilda Omonaiye/
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has admitted to errors in the conduct of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made the disclosure on Wednesday during a press conference in Abuja. He revealed that a team set up to investigate complaints from candidates and the public identified the issue within 24 hours of commencing its work.
According to Oloyede, the problem was traced to 65 centres in Lagos and 92 in the Owerri zone, affecting a total of 157 out of 882 examination centres nationwide. He attributed the failure to the negligence and carelessness of service providers responsible for technical functions.
“In these centres, the software patch was not properly applied on some servers by the service provider,” he explained. “This failure disrupted the upload of candidates’ responses during the first three or four days of the exam, depending on the zone.”
As a corrective measure, Oloyede announced that affected candidates will be required to retake their examinations starting Friday, May 16, 2025. He assured that affected individuals will be notified through multiple channels, including SMS, email, phone calls, and their JAMB profiles. They are advised to reprint their examination slips for the new dates.
Apologising for the disruption, Oloyede said: “Despite identifying the source of the problem and the affected centres, we acknowledge the reputational damage this has caused JAMB. As Registrar, I take full responsibility, including for the negligence of our service provider. I offer my unreserved apologies to all affected Nigerians, both directly and indirectly.”
He emphasized the board’s commitment to accountability and improvement: “This incident is a major setback, but we remain steadfast in our values of transparency, fairness, and equity. We admit our errors because, despite our best efforts, we are not infallible.”
Concluding, he said: “There are three powerful expressions: one word—‘please’, two words—‘thank you’, and three words—‘I am sorry’. I appeal to all affected candidates to accept this explanation as the plain truth. I apologise sincerely and take full responsibility—not just in words, but in action.”
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