2025 UTME: South-East Reps Caucus wants JAMB Registrar to resign

The South East Caucus in the House of Representatives on Monday called on the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, to resign from office to allow for an unfettered investigation.

The Caucus’s position was contained in a statement titled JAMB’s Horrifying Failure in the 2025 UTME Examination and the Urgent Need for Accountability: The Position of the South East Caucus of the House of Representatives, issued by its leader, Hon. Igariwey Iduma Enwo, who also called for the cancellation of the examination.

He said, “Last week, particularly on 14 May 2025, the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, made the shocking public admission that due to a ‘technical glitch’ that occurred in some of its examination centres during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), some 379,997 out of 1.9 million students who sat for the examination would need to resit it.

“As a Caucus, we are expectedly concerned because the five South Eastern states we represent, without exception, were directly impacted by JAMB’s so-called ‘score distortions’.

“Over the week, we have shown restraint and waited for JAMB’s remedial measures in addressing what is clearly a disastrous and catastrophic institutional failure that has shaken the trust and confidence of students and families across the country.

“While we appreciate the fact that instead of concealing or obfuscating, Professor Oloyede has come out to admit JAMB’s failure, we state unequivocally that what JAMB has offered in remediation falls far short of the expectations of our impacted constituents.

“Indeed, JAMB’s knee-jerk and fire-brigade approach has been anything but sufficient or desirable. Traumatised students in the South Eastern states, many of whom are still taking their WAEC examinations, have been invited with less than 48 hours’ notice to present themselves for the rescheduled UTME examination.

“Reports indicate that the notice was far too short for most of the students, resulting in low turnout; and in some cases, the rescheduled date has clashed with ongoing WAEC examination papers. The outcome has been heart-wrenching for students and parents and agonisingly shambolic, to say the least.

“We need not remind Nigerians that JAMB, as a government agency, is expected to uphold the fundamental obligations of government to its citizens.

“Indeed, the framers of our constitution, in recognition of the pivotal primacy of education in national development, clearly stated in Section 18(1) of the 1999 Constitution that ‘Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels’.

“This principle has, by recent judicial pronouncements, assumed the status of an enforceable right for every Nigerian child. However, for the thousands of students across the five South Eastern states of Nigeria, the tainted and flawed outcome of the 2025 UTME examination has clearly stripped and denied them any ‘equal and adequate educational opportunities’.

“As a result of the above reasons and many more, we call for the total cancellation of the 2025 UTME examinations and the fixing of a new date for them across the country. Indeed, only yesterday, the Association of Tutorial School Operators advised that ‘The UTME should be moved to July/August, after the completion of WAEC and NECO examinations, to ensure that no prospective candidate is disadvantaged’. We consider this a very brilliant and compelling suggestion.

“Finally, it is obvious that apologies, platitudes, and public relations campaigns are not enough to address the far-reaching and gargantuan implications of the national embarrassment that attended JAMB’s conduct of the 2025 UTME examination.

“To this end, we call for the immediate suspension of those at the commanding heights of JAMB’s digital operations and examination logistics. The Registrar of JAMB is said to be a good man, but leadership must carry consequences.

“We, therefore, call on the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, to do the needful by resigning his appointment to allow for a thorough examination and remediation of the root causes of this national shame. That is the standard in any civilised democracy, and we expect no less.”

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