The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, JAMB, has admitted that there were errors in the conduct of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made the declaration on Wednesday at a press conference in Abuja.
He explained that the team set up to investigate the complaints by students and members of the public about the conduct of the examination discovered the problem within 24 hours of commencement of work.
He said the team was able to identify the source of the problem, disclosing that it affected 65 centres in Lagos and 92 centres in Owerri zone.
Oloyede blamed the problem on the carelessness, negligence, and lack of concern exhibited by the agents entrusted with certain functions.
His words: “In these centres, the patch was not properly applied in some centre servers by the service provider and that failure disrupted the upload of the candidates’ responses within the first three or four days, as applicable to Lagos and Owerri zones.”
READ ALSO: Cholera: Plateau records three deaths, five confirmed cases
As a way out, he said the board had decided that all the candidates affected in the 157 centres out of 882 centres would be contacted to retake their examinations starting from Friday, May 16, 2025.
“These candidates are to be contacted through text messages addressed to their registered phone numbers, their email addresses, their profiles and phone calls by JAMB. They are directed to reprint their Examination Slips for the rescheduled examination dates,” he said.
Apologising for the errors, Oloyede said: “Despite being able to identify the source of the problem and the affected centres, we are conscious of the painful damage it has inflicted on the reputation of JAMB. 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. It is our culture to admit error because we know that in spite of the best of our efforts, we are human, we are not perfect. The only consolation we have in this case is that it is just one of the two service providers that did not do well by uploading improperly but it was not a case of glitches nor sabotage.”
He added: “I understand that there are three powerful expressions which contain one word, two words and three words respectively. They are please, thank you and I am sorry. So, I appeal to the candidates and those affected by the error of our system to accept this explanation as the truth of the matter without embellishment, PLEASE. I apologise and take full responsibility not just in words.”
