By Kazeem Akintunde
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the sole body that organizes students’ admissions into higher institutions of learning in Nigeria, has been in the eye of a storm in the last few days. Trouble started for the examination body when it announced on May 9, that the results of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) recorded more than half of the over 1.9 million students scoring less than 200 out of a total of 400 marks.
From the statistics released by the examination body, out of 1,955,069 candidates who sat for the 2025 UTME, more than 1.5 million scored less than 200 marks in the examination. Again, the analysis showed that only 420,415 candidates scored above 200 marks, with 756 of them scoring above 320. Up to 7,658 of the candidates scored between 300 and 319 marks.
Also 40,247 underage candidates were permitted to take the examination to demonstrate their exceptional abilities. However, only 467 of those candidates achieved scores that meet the threshold for exceptional ability as defined by the UTME, with their performances in the subsequent three stages still pending.
Many students and their parents rejected the results, as most of them believed that they prepared well for the exam, and urged JAMB to take a second look. When the furor became too much, with some parents considering going to court, JAMB was forced to take a second look at the results announced, and in the process, discovered that there were technical glitches that affected a large number of the students that took the exam.
To make a bad case worse, the nation woke up to the sad news of a 19-year-old student, Opesusi Faith Timilehin, who reportedly scored 190 in the exam and was so distraught by the low score that she took her own life by consuming rat poison. Timilehin, who was living with her older sister in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, sat for the same examination last year, the result of which came out better than this year’s.
The deceased reportedly requested for palm oil to ease the pain she was experiencing from consuming the poison, unknown to her older sister. It was when she eventually confessed to her sister that she was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was confirmed dead.
Two days after Timilehin took her own life, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the registrar of JAMB, broke down in tears while announcing to an angry nation that indeed, there were glitches during the examination, and that a total of 379,997 candidates in the five states of the South East and Lagos were affected. This is made up of 206,610 candidates in 65 centres in Lagos and 92 centres in Owerri zone comprising 173,387 candidates in the five states of the South East.
Oloyede said that those affected would have the opportunity to retake the examination for free. While some sat for the retake examination last week Friday, the rest of the candidates would sit for the resit examination today (Monday).
Since his appointment as the registrar of JAMB in August 2016 by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for an initial five-year tenure which was renewed in August 2021, Oloyede has demonstrated exemplary conduct in the discharge of his duties. He has introduced many innovative ideas to the system that has made it easy for brilliant students from poor backgrounds to get education without having to know any Vice Chancellor.
Prior to his coming on board, admission to universities and other tertiary institutions in the country was mainly done through ‘man know man’ , an unorthodox system where connections are used to influence the admissions process. But Oloyede changed the system by ensuring that admission is given only to those who truly earned it.
As a parent, I can vouch for the transparent manner in which admissions are conducted into universities and polytechnics across the country. I did not have to call any Vice Chancellor when my children were seeking admissions into top federal universities. None of my children scored below 300 and their admissions were guaranteed. Oloyede was transparent in his dealing with many of the Vice Chancellors and Polytechnic Rectors when it came to admission of students and he did not condone any backend admissions by university heads.
His reforms also ensured that cheating and other malpractices were reduced to the barest minimum before, during, and after the examination. Reforms such as the inclusion of the National Identify Number (NIN), the live monitoring of examination registrations, as well as the adoption of a Central Processing System in admission placements amongst others. In-house, he introduced a special welfare package and incentive for JAMB workers. Most staff now enjoy free daily meals in order to make public servants shy away from corruption and other sharp practices.
Indeed, a few months after he was appointed as the JAMB registrar, Oloyede was shocked when a female staff of the Board in Makurdi, Benue State, could not account for N36 million realised from the sale of scratch cards prior to the examination going digital. The employee, Philomina Chieshe, said that the snake swallowed the money from her safe deposit to the bewilderment of many. She was quickly suspended and the matter reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). That was as far back as 2018.
This drew commendation galore for Oloyede at the federal executive council meeting presided over by Buhari when it was announced that for the first time in the history of JAMB, Oloyede had remitted N5billion to the government’s coffers with a promise to pay the balance of N3billion as excess funds realised from sales of JAMB forms to students in his first year in charge. The highest figure the federal government had got from previous heads of the organisation was N3 million in the last 40 years.
Kemi Adeosun, the then Minister of Finance was so shocked that she called for a probe of previous heads of the agency. In actual fact, Dibu Ojerinde, who was in charge of the agency between April 2010 and August 2016, is still being prosecuted by the EFCC and the ICPC.
The transparent manner that Oloyede ran JAMB in actual fact, created problems for Oloyede, as several petitions were written against him which anti-graft agencies found to be baseless. In fact, one of such petitions was written by a civil society organisation, The Transparency Advocacy for Development Initiative (TADI).
The TADI had submitted a petition to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in respect of the allegations made by its sister organisation, Integrity and Transparency Watchdog against Prof. Oloyede. However, the organisation said its independent investigation showed that the allegations were false and therefore, had to withdraw it.
“As a civil society organisation that has integrity as our watchword, we cannot continue to be part of the selfish motive of some few corrupt individuals in JAMB that want to return the Board to the old ways and are hell-bent on dragging a man of integrity to the mud,” the Director of Media and Advocacy of TADI, Comrade Adamu Matazu, said.
Matazu added that the group’s findings showed that Prof. Oloyede had delivered beyond expectations. “We found out that the man has delivered beyond expectations. Some of his achievements in the past eight years are many. The Prof. Oloyede-led management has, through prudent management of resources and blockage of all corrupt channels yielded over N50 billion to the coffers of the Federal Government. In his first year in office, he remitted N7.8 billion to the Treasury Single Account – the highest the Board had remitted in the 40 years of its existence before Prof. Oloyede was appointed was less than N70 million. The credibility of the examination has been improved through the credibility and inclusivity he introduced in the process chains. As of today, the Board is one of the most sought-after public examinations in Africa. The Board receives requests for partnerships from sister organisations to train their members of staff in new forms of the conduct of public examinations.’’
With the conduct of this year’s UTME, Oloyede should be on his toes throughout the remaining period of his second term in office. Although there have been technical glitches recorded in many advanced countries, he should see what happened as a learning curve and move on by ensuring that such does not happen again.
Globally, high-stakes standardised tests have been marred by significant technical failures, raising concerns about the integrity and reliability of these assessments. Last year, India’s National Testing Agency (NTA) faced substantial criticism following the 2024 NEET-UG examination. The exam was plagued by allegations of question paper leaks, with authorities arresting individuals in connection with the leaks. Additionally, discrepancies in results, such as an unusually high number of perfect scores and mathematically improbable marks, led to public outcry and legal challenges. The matter got to the Supreme Court. In its ruling, the apex court acknowledged that at least 155 students benefited from the paper leak but ruled against a nationwide re-examination, citing the lack of systemic failure.
In the United States of America, the College Board transitioned the SAT to a digital format in 2024 to modernise the testing process. However, the rollout was not without issues. Some test-takers reported technical difficulties, such as connectivity problems and software glitches, that disrupted the testing experience. While the College Board addressed these concerns by providing alternative testing dates and support, the incidents highlighted the challenges of transitioning to digital assessments on a large scale.
Similarly, India’s Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) in 2024 encountered issues, including technical glitches and inconsistencies in question paper difficulty levels, leading to normalisation concerns and dissatisfaction among candidates.
However, Oloyede and his board should learn from what has happened and give assurances to candidates that they would continue to be fair and just in their dealings with them. Already, JAMB has established a Candidate Counselling Emergency Support Centre (CCESC) to assist candidates with immediate problems. The centre would complement JAMB’s existing ticketing platform, which remains the preferred and most efficient method of communication with the board.
That is the way to go, while those calling for the head of Oloyede should start having a rethink. Now is not the time to throw away the baby with the bath water. Our heart goes out to the loved ones of late Timilehin. May God rest her soul in perfect peace.
See you next week.
