Reps to probe ‘technical error’ in JAMB’s 2025 UTME

The house of representatives has resolved to investigate the technical error that compromised the results of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The green chamber passed the resolution during plenary on Thursday following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Adewale Adebayo, a lawmaker from Osun state.

The results from JAMB’s 2025 UTME were released on May 9. A breakdown showed that more than 78 per cent of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum points obtainable.

This spurred protests that questioned the overall integrity of the examination process.

JAMB undertook an early review and uncovered a major “technical error”.

On Wednesday, Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, during a press conference in Abuja, said the results of 379,997 candidates were affected.

He said the board discovered discrepancies linked to faulty server updates in its Lagos and south-east zones, which led to the failure to upload candidates’ responses during the first three days of the examination.

Oloyede said the problem, which was caused by one of the two technical service providers for the exercise, went undetected before the results were released.

He affected candidates will now have the opportunity to retake the examination between May 16 and May 19, 2025.

The development has sparked mixed reactions, with Nigerians airing their views across social media platforms.

THE MOTION

Moving the motion, Adebayo said many Nigerians have suffered losses while travelling long distances to their UTME examination centres.

In his contribution to the motion, Sada Soli, a lawmaker from Katsina state, urged the house to commend the JAMB registrar for admitting the technical error and apologising to Nigerians.

He said the JAMB boss has “demonstrated integrity” and increased the board’s revenue since he was appointed into office.

However, Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house, said it would be up to the committee conducting the investigation to decide whether or not to commend the JAMB registrar.

The motion was unanimously adopted when it was subjected to a voice vote by Abbas.

Consequently, the house asked the federal government to establish CTB centres across all LGAs in the country.

The house also asked JAMB to release the results of under-16 students who participated in the examination.