Did Nigeria witness a mass failure in the 2025 UTME, or a scandalously botched examination process by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB)? While independent investigations may be needed to fully untangle what went wrong, one thing is already clear: JAMB’s credibility is in tatters, and the events of this year’s examination cycle represent a disturbing case study in how not to run a national assessment program. In a year marred by missteps and administrative hubris, JAMB 2025 has gone down as one of the most controversial and mismanaged exercises in the agency’s history. Not since the dark days of analog errors and handwritten registration forms has public confidence in the institution been so shaken. The unfolding saga is more than just a poor showing in a standardized exam; it is a public-sector disaster that pulled back the curtain on the deep dysfunctions embedded within Nigeria’s education system and bureaucracy at large.
The outrage was instantaneous. As soon as JAMB announced that 78% of candidates scored below 200, the backlash began. But this wasn’t the usual grumbling about low performance or “lazy students.” No -this time, parents, candidates, and the public cried foul. Not only were the scores abysmally low, but many candidates swore with confidence that the scores printed on their slips were incorrect. By May 12, over 8,400 candidates had formally requested a review of their scripts, asserting that the results on their slips were not only incorrect, but suspiciously inconsistent with their performance expectations. These were not isolated grumblings; they were collective, resolute demands from students and parents across the country, expressing deep distrust in the integrity of the process.
Initially, JAMB’s reaction was predictable and infuriating: denial and blame-shifting. For three whole days, the Board hid behind bureaucratic smokescreens, blaming “candidate errors,” digital “omissions,” and the complexities of CBT exams. But public outrage mounted, and the pressure became undeniable. On Wednesday, May 14, JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede broke down in tears at a press briefing in Abuja, publicly apologizing for the “trauma” caused and admitting to serious errors in the conduct of the examination. But by then, the damage was done. What should have been a dignified gateway into higher education had become an endurance test in public-sector incompetence.
According to JAMB, 379,997 candidates in Lagos and the five South-East states were directly affected by result glitches. In Lagos alone, 206,610 candidates in 65 centres were impacted, while 173,387 candidates across 92 centres in the South-East experienced technical failures. That is nearly 20% of all test-takers—an astonishing figure by any standard. But why stop at those numbers? The entire dataset JAMB has released demands suspicion. From a total of 1,955,069 results processed, only 0.63% (12,414 candidates) scored 300 and above. Over 1.5 million students – more than 75% – scored below 200, the perceived minimum for meaningful university admission. Are Nigerians really expected to accept these catastrophic outcomes from a process now officially admitted to be flawed? What JAMB has called “glitches” must be called what they are: failures of competence, planning, and oversight. If nearly 400,000 candidates had compromised results, how can the remaining 1.5 million scores be considered unimpeachable? This fiasco is not occurring in a vacuum.
A Mockery of Mock Exams
Even before the main exams, the mock UTME exposed JAMB’s operational ineptitude. Candidates were posted outside their states, sometimes across long distances, under the laughable excuse that “centres were unavailable.” Really? JAMB runs two exams a year. What exactly is it doing the other ten months if not preparing and validating its infrastructure? That this logistical fiasco repeats annually points to a culture of mediocrity and disregard for candidate welfare. The mock exam, which should serve as a dry run for perfection, was a mirror of the shambolic main event. If JAMB cannot manage a small subset of examinees without chaos, how can it be trusted with the futures of over a million candidates?
The Literature Book Nobody Could Read
It gets worse. One of the approved texts for Literature, The Lekki Headmaster, was printed in font size 10 with single line spacing – a visual nightmare in a country with erratic electricity and under-resourced schools. The message was loud and clear: JAMB either didn’t care or was more interested in cutting costs than supporting candidates. That a national exam body would sign off on such an inaccessible text raises serious concerns about standards, oversight, and empathy.
Then came the 6:30 a.m. reporting time, a directive so absurd it required contestants to risk their safety in a country plagued by insecurity, just to sit an exam. That JAMB would consider such a schedule in Nigeria’s current climate is not just insensitive; it is reckless. And when backlash followed, they denied the timing altogether, insulting the intelligence of a nation already battered by dysfunction. What lessons are these young minds supposed to learn from such dishonest bureaucracy?
Technical issues plagued the exam, yet there were no provisions for redress. If a system hung for 30 minutes, candidates were expected to shrug it off—no rescheduling, no compensation, nothing. The exam, it seemed, had become a cost-cutting sprint rather than a quality-driven assessment. JAMB wanted to finish quickly, to save money and reduce logistics, even if that meant sacrificing fairness, transparency, and integrity.
In a rare twist, JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede finally acknowledged some failings on May 14. His admission of result analysis errors and announcement of a resit opportunity was a welcome, if belated, gesture. It showed a flicker of accountability sorely missing in Nigerian public service. But while Prof. Oloyede’s apology was commendable, it cannot undo the psychological trauma, reputational damage, and potential academic derailments caused by the fiasco.
The Bigger Picture: Systemic Rot
The Nigerian public sector’s recurring failure to prioritize the common good is at play here. What we see is not a one-off mistake but a system that has normalized dysfunction. JAMB’s leadership was content to ride out the storm with hollow talking points, until it couldn’t. That it took widespread outrage, legal threats, and national media attention to extract a confession and apology from the board is an indictment of the culture of public service in Nigeria.
This isn’t just about JAMB. It’s about the pervasive dysfunction in Nigeria’s public institutions, where narrow interests, poor ethics, and total disregard for public welfare reign supreme. From the judiciary to health care, from security to education, our systems are run like personal estates—opaque, arbitrary, and unaccountable. JAMB’s 2025 outing is a case study in how mediocrity has been institutionalized. It’s not just a failure of leadership—it’s a failure of ethics, empathy, and efficiency. Until public service becomes service in truth, and not merely a slogan, more such fiascos will continue to rob Nigerian youth of opportunity and dignity.
Let it be known: this crisis is not resolved by an apology and a resit offer. It is resolved when the very foundation of JAMB’s processes is re-evaluated, overhauled, and rebuilt with transparency, professionalism, and genuine regard for the Nigerian student Let the 2025 JAMB debacle be a warning. To JAMB, to public institutions, to policy makers: this is not sustainable. Nigerian students deserve better. The future of a country cannot rest in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats who mistake rigidity for order and opacity for authority. This is a call to do better, because a generation is watching.
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