JAMB BOSS OLOYEDE BREAKS DOWN, ACCEPTS FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR 2025 UTME FAILURE
In a rare and emotional public admission, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, has assumed full responsibility for the widespread technical failures that marred the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), leaving thousands of candidates distressed and prompting public outrage. Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, an emotional Oloyede—known for his strict administrative discipline—acknowledged that despite what he described as “meticulous preparations,” the board was unable to ensure a glitch-free exam process.
“As the Registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible, especially for the negligence of the service provider,” Oloyede said,. “We set all the machineries in order. Regardless, there were still errors.”
The 2025 UTME has been plagued with disruptions, particularly in several centres in Lagos and the South East, where system failures, biometric verification breakdowns, and sudden power outages forced exams to be halted or abandoned. Some candidates were reportedly locked out of the exam halls despite arriving early, while others faced freezing computer systems midway through their tests.
This is the first time a sitting JAMB registrar has publicly accepted fault on this scale, marking a significant moment in the history of public accountability in Nigeria’s education sector. Civil society groups and parents’ associations have responded with a mixture of sympathy and condemnation, urging the federal government to institute a broader inquiry into JAMB’s operational frameworks and its reliance on third-party service providers.
