The 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), administered by Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has ignited widespread controversy due to technical glitches, questionable results, and tragic consequences.
The 2025 UTME controversy is truly a crisis in numbers, worsened by the fact that the signs have been there long enough for it to have been avoided. This year’s UTME saw over 1.9 million candidates participate, yet a staggering 70.7% scored below 200 out of 400, marking one of the poorest performances in recent history.
While JAMB maintains that these results align with historical trends, the sheer volume of low scores has raised concerns about potential systemic issues. Technical malfunctions were reported in 157 centers, particularly in Lagos and the South-East, affecting approximately 379,997 candidates.
In response, JAMB organized rescheduled exams for these candidates. However, the resit exams were again marred by further issues, including a 6% absentee rate and the withdrawal of over 3,000 results due to alleged examination malpractices.
Typical of Nigeria’s bureaucracy, faced with compulsory accountability by adverse public opinion, JAMB responded with damage control and evasive manoeuvres. This was quickly swept aside by the sheer volume of anger flooding out of the sluice gates of outraged vox populi.
Facing mounting criticism, JAMB acknowledged the technical glitches and human errors and pledged to implement remedial measures where necessary. The Board initiated a comprehensive review of the 2025 UTME results, engaging experts, including members of the Computer Professionals Association of Nigeria and Vice Chancellors from various institutions, to scrutinize the examination process.
Research into a decade of UTME results, from 2013 to 2025 specifically, reveals fluctuating performance trends. Notably, 2025 recorded the highest number of candidates scoring above 250 since 2013, with 134,398 candidates achieving this feat. However, the overall performance remains concerning, with a historic majority scoring below the 200 mark.
These trends suggest systemic issues within Nigeria’s public tertiary education admissions system, including inadequate preparation, infrastructural challenges and potential flaws in the examination process. Despite these efforts, the board’s communication has been criticized for lacking empathy, especially in the wake of tragic incidents linked to the examination.
In 2025 we saw scores of distraught children bemoaning their JAMB results on social media, with some making threats ‘if something is not done’ that suggests the possibility of self harm. Yet, painful as each lamentation was, none is quite as tragic as the story of 19-year-old Timilehin Opesusi, who took her own life after receiving a UTME score of 146.
Her choice underscores the dire consequences of a flawed educational assessment system. Note that I use ‘choice’ deliberately because our society, faced with mounting incidents of young people taking their lives for everything from failed love to leaked nudes to disappointing results, must stand her ground and insist that suicide is never an option.
Timi’s father’s grief as reported in the media, along with the circumstances surrounding her death, highlight the immense pressure admission-seeking Nigerian students face. I am a father many times over and his search for admission of wrong by JAMB and assisted closure from the very custodian of the system that triggered her resonates.
All in all, we learn that there is a serious human cost to systemic failures – in governance as in other aspects. Neither the current JAMB imbroglio nor Timilehin’s case is unprecedented. The only difference is that the 2025 UTME failings were too riddled with humongous issues to be ignored and Timilehin took the usual trauma swallowed by JAMB students over the years to an extent that has left us bereft.
It is therefore time we do a holistic overhaul of our public university matriculation process. I don’t necessarily call for the heads to fall in the Board, except investigations reveal either malicious intent to sabotage or unforgivable dereliction of duty. So far, the registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has done a yeoman’s job at JAMB and I don’t think 2025 should be the defining season of his leadership.
However, as a nation, we have a duty to interrogate the existing protocols and why it is so bedeviled with technical glitches, questionable results and inadequate communication, among other failings. We must find out why JAMB has these problems and how to end them – because they not only undermine the credibility of the examination but also have fundamental psychological impacts on students.
Such introspection should inevitably lead us to a rethinking of the entire structure and underpinnings of JAMB Examination process to make sure that what needs to be strengthened is, and what needs to change, does. This will help us prevent future tragedies and restore trust in Nigeria’s educational assessments.
Personally, I would suggest that a slew of obvious reforms are now more imperative than ever at JAMB, including:
1¦ Transparent communication. In 2025, JAMB was slow to acknowledge the scale of technical issues affecting nearly 380,000 candidates. Its eventual press statements came only after public outrage and media pressure. In Timilehin’s case, the family was never formally contacted.
JAMB must establish a real-time public incident reporting portal and a verified helpline where candidates can log complaints and receive feedback within 72 hours. Timilehin might still be alive if she had an official line to call after the results came out where a trained counsellor can talk her through the trauma of ostensible ‘failure’.
Transparency must also include periodic public briefings during UTME Windows. Also public service announcements, text messages, whatsapp broadcasts, emails, etc, straight to candidates’ devices laying out grievance mechanisms ahead of and after release of results.
2¦ Technical Overhaul. Despite repeated reports of CBT center failures since at least 2018, JAMB continues to license under-resourced centers, leading to widespread system crashes, logouts and incomplete exams in 2025. Candidates have too much riding on JAMB examinations to have to deal with that pain.
JAMB should implement a pre-exam technical audit of all CBT centers, and blacklist any that fails a standardized stress test under real-exam conditions. Partnering with reputable tech companies for nationwide infrastructure support can also ensure more reliable systems.
3¦ Mental Health Support. JAMB has historically treated UTME as purely academic, with no support structures for the emotional toll on candidates. There is no formal mechanism for post-result trauma response or suicide prevention.
Part of the standardised requirements to be registered as a CBT centre should include having a trained counselor present on examination days – and they do not have to be on staff. If INEC can ‘borrow’ Vice Chancellors of universities for elections, JAMB can ‘borrow’ Guidance Counsellors for her CBT centres from states’ ministries of education for examination day.
In addition, JAMB should partner with NGOs and mental health platforms to offer toll-free, confidential post-exam counseling. These services should be publicized during registration and result release. Kids should have somewhere to turn when their world is crashing down – and empathy can help us shore up their mental health and, perhaps, prevent the next Timilehin.
4¦ Holistic Assessment. JAMB still operates a high-stakes, one-off, make-or-break examination model that ignores individual learning differences. No alternative pathways are available for gifted students with poor test-taking skills or those who suffer disruptions. Introduce a complementary ‘Student Aptitude Profile’ (SAP) for public and private universities that includes WAEC/NECO performance, school records and behavioral metrics. JAMB can then serve as one of several weighted components in university admissions – not the sole determinant.
Another thing SAP, if implemented as suggested here, will help us with is eliminate the ongoing penalizing of poverty and the ensuing imbalances. For a case study, imagine two friends, classmates in a secondary school – one rich and one from a poor home – who both do poorly in JAMB the same year. 3 months later the rich guy is reading a choice course in a private university while the poor one is facing at least one year of uncertainty – and unbelievable heartbreak (I had a near-identical experience myself, so I know).
Why is this important? Over the years, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through JAMB, has quietly allowed private universities and other non-public tertiary institutions to admit candidates with UTME scores significantly below the cut-off marks required for public universities – sometimes as low as 120. This policy concession, often justified as a way to enhance access and reduce admission bottlenecks, has enabled many students who ‘underperformed’ in JAMB to thrive academically and some have even gone on to emerge as first-class graduates or student leaders, proving their capabilities go beyond standardized testing.
This reality, while commendable, exposes a troubling disconnect: JAMB scores may not always reflect actual academic potential, especially when affected by technical glitches, exam-day anxiety or environmental factors such as a candidates’ computer illiteracy. Students from poorer backgrounds – unable to afford private university tuition – don’t benefit from this leeway and are instead cast aside by a system that equates performance with ability. If exceptions work for the wealthy, then fairness demands that the testing system itself be reformed to prevent capable but underprivileged candidates from being unjustly excluded.
5. Accountability Measures. While JAMB frequently announces arrests of impersonators or the delisting of CBT centers, there is little follow-through or independent oversight. Resit candidates in 2025 saw results withdrawn arbitrarily without transparent review processes.
JAMB needs to establish an independent Examination Integrity Panel (EIP) comprising civil society, ICT experts and student reps to oversee malpractice investigations, appeal cases and CBT center licensing. Its reports should be made public annually.
What more can we say? Each of the steps I have outlined above is not only practical but necessary if JAMB is to retain its relevance and restore public trust. Without urgent reforms, the cycle of inefficiency and tragedy will only persist.
Timilehin’s tragedy should serve as a catalyst for change. It’s imperative that stakeholders in Nigeria’s education sector come together to reform the UTME process, making sure that it serves as a fair and accurate measure of student potential. Only through collective action can we prevent further loss and build a system that truly supports our youth.
Moses Okezie-Okafor is a lawyer, policy strategist, and doctoral researcher in Peace and Conflict Studies. He writes on governance, education, and leadership reform, with a focus on building systems that work for all – especially the underserved.