The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has publicly acknowledged errors in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), affecting nearly 380,000 candidates across Lagos and South-East zones.
The development follows weeks of backlash from students, parents, and stakeholders who decried widespread technical issues and questionable results.
Speaking during a press conference held in Bwari, Abuja, JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, admitted to the lapses recorded during the conduct of the exams.
Prof. Oloyede emotionally addressed the press, acknowledging the trauma caused to candidates and accepting full responsibility.
“I apologise for the trauma caused to the candidates and I take full responsibility for this,” he said.
States and candidates affected
Prof. Oloyede stated that the errors affected 157 centres across Lagos and Owerri zones.
“While 65 centres (206,610 candidates) were affected in Lagos zone (comprising only Lagos state), 92 centres (173,387 candidates) were affected in Owerri zone, which includes the South East states.”
He clarified that the issue was due to service providers’ failure to update delivery servers, an oversight that went unnoticed before the results were released.
“In clear terms, in the process of rectifying the issue, the technical personnel deployed by the Service Provider for LAG (Lagos and South-East zones) inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery servers. Regrettably, this oversight went undetected prior to the release of the results,” he stated
Background
JAMB released the statistical breakdown of the 2025 UTME results, revealing that scored above 200, the minimum score generally accepted for university admission.
- Out of 1,955,069 candidates, only 412,415 crossed the benchmark, while nearly 79% scored below it.
- This triggered alarm among educators and stakeholders who urged reforms in teaching standards and curriculum delivery across secondary schools.
- The board later released individual results on May 9, leading to widespread outrage on social media as candidates and parents questioned the fairness of the scores.
Some demanded that JAMB allow result verification or re-marking, citing discrepancies between their expected and actual outcomes.
Allegations also emerged of serious technical issues during the exams, such as malfunctioning systems, disappearing questions, and inaccessible sections.
This public outcry prompted JAMB .
How the error occurred
According to Prof. Oloyede, the error stemmed from a technical issue involving JAMB’s internal operational structure during this year’s UTME.
- He disclosed that JAMB uses two operational ‘vehicles’ named KAD and LAG to manage examinations nationwide. The KAD vehicle contains the Northern states excluding Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi and FCT but it includes the six South South states.
- He explained that the LAG vehicle, which includes the Southern states excluding the 6 South South states but it includes Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi and FCT, experienced an error where examination options were not shuffled, prompting JAMB to implement an urgent corrective update.
However, the corrective update applied to LAG on Tuesday, April 29, led to patch errors in some centres in Lagos and the South East.
“On the second day of the examinations this year, which was Friday, April 25, 2025, we discovered that there was some omission in the items within the LAG category
“To correct and re-upload the responses (i.e. results) from LAG for the pre-Tuesday glitch, the service providers concerned with LAG were deployed to effect the patch, but there were patch errors in some centres (servers) for the first three or four days in only two locations,” he stated
More insights
The JAMB Registrar expressed deep regret over the incident, stating that he holds himself personally responsible, including for the negligence on the part of the service provider
“As Registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible, including for the negligence of the service provider, and I unreservedly apologise for it and the trauma that it has subjected affected Nigerians to, directly and indirectly. Once again, we apologise and assure you that this incident represents a significant setback for the Board’s reputation. We remain committed to emerging stronger in our core values of transparency, fairness, and equity,” he said
Despite the controversy, JAMB noted that the 2025 UTME recorded the highest individual score in over 15 years, with a top mark of 374. However, the overall performance of candidates was lower than that of the previous year.