South-east senators caution JAMB against recurrence of UTME glitches

The south-east senate caucus has expressed concerns over the technical glitches that marred the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in several centres across the region and Lagos state.

A statement on Saturday by Enyinnaya Abaribe, chairman of the caucus, described the disruptions as “curious and highly suspicious,” warning that a recurrence would be unacceptable.

While acknowledging the efforts of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to remedy the situation, including the rescheduling of affected examinations, he said a strong assurance was needed to prevent future occurrences.

“The so-called glitch, as curious and suspicious as it were, is enough to erode confidence and dangerously lower national pride among the future generation,” Abaribe said.

“The relevant national education drivers must recognise the inherent danger of injecting hateful politics and narrow parochial consideration in both policy enunciation and its implementations.”

He commended JAMB for accepting responsibility and the open apology by its registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, but warned that public displays of regret must not be used to cover deeper issues.

“That the glitch happened in the whole of South-East raises pertinent questions that must be answered by JAMB to assuage the growing frustrations and fears among the people of the region, particularly the children who are directly at the receiving end,” he added.

“We must pursue a Nigerian agenda and not a narrow one that will ultimately injure national unity.”

Abaribe said education is a critical pillar of national development and must be safeguarded at all costs.

“Education remains one of the most important bedrocks of any society’s advancement. It is one major index of development in every facet of life that can never be faulted,” he said.

“Education is a major pivot that triggers national development. Every child is entitled to it, therefore we must not play roulette with it.”

He said the south-east senate caucus is on alert and under pressure from its constituents and demands firm assurance from JAMB and other relevant authorities that such a “scandalous glitch” will never happen again.

BACKGROUND

The results from JAMB’s 2025 UTME were released on May 9. An analysis indicated that more than 78 percent of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum obtainable points.

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

On Wednesday, Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, admitted that mistakes made by one of JAMB’s service providers led to distorted results for nearly 380,000 candidates in 157 centres across the Lagos and the south-east states.