JAMB Confirms Technical Error in 2025 UTME, Orders Resit for Nearly 388,000 Candidates

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has revealed that a serious technical fault compromised the integrity of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results for nearly 388,000 candidates across 157 centres nationwide.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede disclosed that a botched server update in the Lagos and Owerri examination zones led to the failure to upload candidate responses during the first three days of the national exam.

“This issue affected a total of 387,997 candidates — 206,610 from 65 centres in Lagos and 173,387 from 92 centres in the Owerri zone,” Oloyede stated. He said the fault stemmed from one of the board’s technical service providers and unfortunately went undetected until after the results were released on May 9.

To rectify the situation, JAMB has announced a rescheduled UTME for all affected candidates beginning Friday, May 16. Affected candidates will receive notifications via SMS, email, and phone calls, and are advised to reprint their examination slips for updated details.

Oloyede extended a public apology, accepting full responsibility for the oversight. “As the registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally accountable — including for the negligence of the service provider — and I unreservedly apologise to all affected,” he said.

The disclosure follows widespread outrage after the initial May 7 results showed that over 78% of candidates scored below 200 out of 400, sparking nationwide protests and concerns over the credibility of the exam.

JAMB explained that the issue originated from a software patch deployed to implement shuffled answer options — a feature introduced to enhance exam security. However, due to an error by the technical personnel, the patch wasn’t correctly applied on several delivery servers in the affected centres.

“This failure occurred during grading updates in the LAG examination zone, which includes the south-west, south-east, and some northern areas,” Oloyede noted. “Despite our rigorous pre-exam testing, the glitch in the grading system remained unnoticed until the release of the results.”

In response to the backlash, JAMB said it accelerated its post-examination audit and brought in independent computer scientists and psychometric experts to conduct a full review of the system. Their findings confirmed that the technical irregularities were confined to the 157 identified centres, with no evidence of systemic failure nationwide.

JAMB is also working closely with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to ensure that the rescheduled UTME does not conflict with ongoing WASSCE examinations.