According to a technical review by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, 379,997 candidates who took the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in the five Southeast states and Lagos State had their results invalidated due to a critical server update error and human error.
To confirm the impact’s magnitude, JAMB collaborated with an impartial tech partner, the Educare Technical Team. After data from more than 18,000 candidates was cleaned up, over 15,000 real response logs were examined.
Get Up to $100,000 Student Loan for Your Master in US or Canada.
The disclosure was made on Wednesday at JAMB’s Abuja headquarters during a high-level technical review session.
Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, presided over the emergency meeting, which was called in reaction to the public outcry that followed the announcement of abnormally low 2025 UTME scores the previous Friday.
Out of the 1.9 million candidates whose results were made public by the board, data showed that more than 1.5 million received scores below 200.
The study claims that the problem was caused by an uneven server patch distribution that was necessary to support significant improvements that were implemented in this year’s UTME.
Although the Kaduna (KAD) cluster’s servers received these upgrades correctly, the Lagos (LAG) cluster, which serves Lagos and the South-East, did not receive them.
As a result, there were many discrepancies in the validation and interpretation of the answers.
“Over 14,000 of those records were traced to the affected centers under the LAG server cluster,” the report confirmed, adding that internal and external audits showed significant overlap in results, supporting the conclusion of systemic malfunction.
“As a result, approximately 92 centers in the Southeast and 65 centers in Lagos—totaling 157 centers—operated using outdated server logic that could not appropriately handle the new answer submission/marking structure. This affected an estimated 379,997 candidates, whose results were severely impacted due to system mismatches during answer validation,” the report stated.
It added, “This review, conducted with thoroughness and transparency, signifies JAMB’s resolve to uphold the sanctity of its examination processes. Going forward, stronger deployment validation protocols and real-time monitoring mechanisms will be implemented to prevent such oversights.
“In summary, JAMB opened its systems to independent reviews to restore public confidence and ensure the reliability of the UTME for all stakeholders. And we hereby report that this incident was neither a system failure nor administrative manipulation, but an outright human error.”
Oloyede broke down in tears as he addressed concerns about the findings during the press briefing in Abuja, acknowledging that a systemic failure was to blame for the inaccuracies.
The impacted 379,997 applicants would retake the test, he said.
“In simple terms, while 65 centers (206,610) were affected in Lagos Zone (comprising only Lagos), 92 centers (173,387) were affected in Owerri Zone, which includes the South East states.
“In clear terms, in the process of rectifying this issue, the technical personnel deployed by the service provider inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery services. Regrettably, this oversight went undetected prior to the release of the results.”
Oloyede went on to say that a retest would be planned for the impacted candidates and that the board had succeeded in isolating the affected centers.
“We have decided that all the candidates affected in the 157 centers out of 882 centers will 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 phones,” the JAMB boss added.
“I understand that there are three powerful expressions that contain one word, two words and three words respectively. They are pleased, 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 apologize and take full responsibility, not just in words.
“Then, I want to say a big THANK YOU to the Honorable Minister of Education for his unwavering belief in JAMB and what the board stands for. I also appreciate all officers and officials who believe in us for their goodwill in the face of this challenge. We have vowed to uphold integrity as the abiding philosophy of JAMB and we won’t waver or depart from it despite the fact that we are not infallible. I am equally grateful to all stakeholders who have lent us their support and expertise in arriving at a logical conclusion that we have arrived at. And for the inconveniences, once again, on behalf of JAMB, I say, I AM SORRY to all Nigerians.”
Read Also:
- The top ten universities in the UK for 2025 have been announced, and the London School of Economics is No. 1
- Fully Funded Kazakhstan Bachelors, Masters, and PhD Scholarships 2025 for International Students (No application fee)
- Federal Government Declares FREE EDUCATION at all 33 Federal Science and Technical Colleges (FSTC) 2025/2026
- “Don’t Come To Sweden”—International Students Advise Others
But after the disclosure, demands for the JAMB registrar’s resignation increased on Wednesday.
The registrar was asked to step aside by Jacob Sule, an education analyst who wrote on X under the handle @jacobsule.
“A country should not be governed by emotions or personal sentiments. Given the circumstances, the Registrar, Professor Oloyede, should be asked to step aside immediately to allow for a full scale independent and transparent investigation.
“Additionally, the Registrar must publicly retract his earlier statements and issue a formal apology to the affected students who have endured undue stress and discomfort. Accountability and empathy are essential in restoring public trust in our institutions.”
Meanwhile, The PUNCH learned that the error was initially discovered on April 25.
Items in the “Lagos category,” a classification for southern states that includes Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi, and the Federal Capital Territory but excludes the six south-southern states, were found to have omissions.
It was tested on Saturday, April 26; Sunday, April 27; and Monday, April 28. The results showed that an update for rectification and grade modification was done immediately.
Ref: Vanguage Newspaper
Read Also: How to get loans to study in the USA and Canada
