By Atoyebi Nike
12 May 2025
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has begun an urgent review of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results following a surge of public protests and complaints over unusually low scores.
In a statement released on Monday, JAMB spokesperson Dr. Fabian Benjamin announced that the board is accelerating its annual post-examination audit in light of the “significant volume of unusual complaints” that emerged after the results were released last Friday.
“If it is determined that there were indeed glitches, we will implement appropriate remedial measures promptly,” Benjamin said.
The board noted that complaints have followed a pattern and are particularly concentrated in certain states. This has prompted a deeper technical review of the examination cycle—from registration to the final release of results.
This year, more than 78 percent of the candidates scored below 200 out of the maximum 400 marks. The result has caused widespread alarm among students, parents, and education stakeholders. Many students, who have consistently excelled academically, took to social media questioning the credibility of the scores, with some insisting the results do not reflect their performance.
In response, JAMB has enlisted a consortium of academic and technical experts, including representatives from the Computer Professionals Association of Nigeria, vice chancellors, chief external examiners, measurement analysts, and the Educational Association and Research Network in Africa, to support the ongoing review.
Despite the public outrage, JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, said the results align with historical trends. According to him, 76 percent of candidates scored below 200 in 2024, and 78 percent in 2022. In 2021, fewer than 0.1 percent scored above 300.
Meanwhile, a growing movement for transparency is gaining momentum. Alex Onyia, CEO of the education software platform Educare, revealed that over 11,000 affected candidates have joined a data compilation effort for a class-action lawsuit. The legal push seeks to compel JAMB to release individual marking sheets and full scoring details.
With the credibility of one of Nigeria’s most important exams under scrutiny, education advocates are calling for greater transparency, fairness, and accountability in the national assessment process.
