The recent bungled Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has expectedly attracted so much criticisms and condemnations from across the country, especially in Lagos and the five eastern states that the so-called glitch impacted.
There are also conspiracy theories, some farfetched and others not so. But what is not in doubt is that nobody can completely dismiss these allegations with the wave of the hand, given our recent historical experience and our proclivities for mischief as a people.
After its initial denial, JAMB registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, admitted that its errors affected the performance of students during the 2025 UTME. Speaking last Wednesday, Oloyede, who broke down in tears as he apologised for the errors and trauma caused to the candidates, said a critical oversight in server updates, coupled with human error, led to the invalidation of results for 379,997 candidates in the five states of the South East and Lagos State which sat for the exams.
The revelation which came after a technical review session chaired by Prof. Oloyede, was convened in response to the widespread outcry that followed the release of the unusually low scores from the 2025 UTME.
It was revealed that over 1.5 million candidates out of the 1.9 million candidates, whose results were released, scored less than 200 marks.
Reports had it that the error was a result of uneven deployment of a critical server patch required to support major innovations introduced in this year’s UTME. It is said that while these upgrades were correctly applied to servers in the Kaduna cluster, they were not deployed to the Lagos cluster, which serves Lagos and the South East region.
Prof. Oloyede, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, broke down in tears while speaking on this unfortunate debacle.
While some conspiracy theorists allege that the error was deliberate ploy to frustrate candidates from the South, especially the South East and Lagos where lots of Igbos live, some are also alleging that the error was intended to bring to an end the stay of Oloyede at JAMB helms of affairs for allegedly disrupting the previous status quo where the body was being fleeced millions of Naira by staff.
First, Oloyede’s era in JAMB remains the most fruitful, at least to the federal government, and most remarkable, given the many innovative solutions he has introduced to the body.
While not completely discarding these theories, I am more inclined to believe the insider sabotage story. After all, we have since come to know that whenever corruption is fought it simply fights back.
It took the coming of Oloyede to open our eyes to the fact that JAMB was indeed generating billions that were unaccounted for. Oloyede opened our eyes to the fact that JAMB is a money-spinning machine.
But where I differ from him, as I argued years back, is that Oloyede, rather than giving the parents of these children some little reprieve by reducing the cost of the exams, given that the body is making so much money, he instead appears more content with declaring billions to government coffers. If JAMB was making so much profit, enough for its officials to steal billions, is it not logical to reduce the fee especially since the body was not primarily set up to generate funds for the government?
That said, it is very possible that Oloyede’s tears may not be crocodiles’ and that he was brought to tears realising the sabotage, perhaps, but I think shedding tears the way he did was of no consequence. His cheering audience are largely stakeholders and sympathisers who benefit from him one way or another. Oloyede should investigate further and if a case of sabotage is established, he should just go ahead and purge the system of these bad eggs. Weeping like a baby over spilled milk is not it.
Second, I do not subscribe to calls for his sack, at least, he admitted the error and accepted responsibility, a rarity in this clime. The standard practice is to insist on the wrong and churn out one excuse or the other while blaming others.
Third, while some have gone to the extreme of calling for the outright scrapping of JAMB, I again differ on this, because our institutions themselves have not given us any reason to believe that they can solely be trusted with the responsibility of admissions of students into our tertiary institutions. Institutions that cannot even check sexual abuses and sex for marks by lecturers would be allowed to relate directly with millions of students from across the country. No. With all its frailties, JAMB intervention is still a shade better.
However, there is still lots of work for JAMB. They must up the ante. Exams that are computer-based should be less cumbersome and controversial. JAMB’s coordination of CBT centres should be taken more seriously. The registration of these centres should be looked into. The harrowing experiences students suffer in writing these exams are completely avoidable. Only proprietors who meet the required threshold should be contracted and not use it as a means of compensating cronies and sympathisers.
Also, JAMB should desist from organising exams at such hours that expose our youth to untold hardships. How for instance do JAMB fix an exam for 6:30 a m. at Ikorodu for a student that lives in Yaba or Mile 2 in Lagos? When will such a student leave home to meet this time? At least, I was told the story of a girl who left her house in Ogun State and had not returned as at the time I was told of this. In this era of ritual killings, kidnappings, banditry, insurgency and a general state of insecurity, JAMB should be better advised.
