A member of the House of Representatives, Iduma Igariwey, has called for the immediate cancellation of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), describing the conduct of the test as a “catastrophic institutional failure” that has eroded public trust in the examination body.
Igariwey, who leads the South-East Caucus in the 10th House, made the statement while speaking on a national programme, where he criticised the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for failing to ensure fairness and order in the conduct of this year’s examination.
“The whole thing has lost its integrity. It has lost its fairness. People who took the time and prepared for exams were no longer in a position to take those exams,” he said.
He added that rescheduling the exams within 48 hours after admitting technical failures showed a lack of planning and accountability on JAMB’s part.
“What we mainly did was to say these exams just must be done the proper way, the right way. So, that’s why we are saying that the exam has to be cancelled, so that the right thing is done in the first place. Because we believe that JAMB cannot just come out and paper over an examination and say they have gone on with the exam,” Igariwey stated.
Responding to JAMB’s explanation that “technical glitches” and “human error” disrupted the exams, Igariwey said the attempt to rectify the situation by holding a resit exam within two days was “unreasonable and poorly thought out.”
“If you recall, you see that we were very restrained in taking a decision. The caucus reacted to what Professor Ishaq (Oloyede) told Nigerians on the 14th of May,” he explained. “He admitted to what we have described as a catastrophic institutional failure, where nearly 400,000 students who took exams in April were asked to come and re-sit those exams. That has never happened in the history of this country. And I’m sure it came as a shock to Nigerians.”
According to Igariwey, many students across the South-East were unable to reach their centres on the rescheduled date due to late notifications and confusion over logistics.
“A lot of students could not make it to the examination halls. So a lot of people could not sit for those re-sit exams. And that was our major concern,” he said.
“So JAMB cannot just, after two days, set another set of exams. You haven’t even told Nigerians that you have corrected whatever led to the initial problem. People are calling for an investigation. People are calling for an examination of what happened. And then you have set those exams right immediately again.”
He added, “Students are unable to have access. So either they will go, and they will hear it’s not going to be in this centre again; it’s going to be in the other centre. A whole lot of people didn’t take those exams.”
Caucus Demands Resignation of JAMB Registrar, Fresh Nationwide Exam
The South-East Caucus of the House of Representatives, led by Igariwey, has also formally demanded the resignation of JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, and the cancellation of the 2025 UTME across the country.
In a statement issued earlier, the lawmakers described the entire process as a “national shame” and cited systemic technical breakdowns, mismanagement of logistics, and poor communication with candidates.
“We call on the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, to do the needful by resigning… That’s the way to go in any civilised democracy,” the statement said.
They also called for the suspension of key JAMB officials in charge of digital infrastructure and logistics, insisting that accountability must follow failure.
The lawmakers warned that the five states in the South-East were severely affected and that trust in JAMB’s capacity to manage high-stakes examinations had been deeply undermined.
At a press briefing on May 14, Professor Oloyede acknowledged widespread issues and apologised for the board’s shortcomings, saying, “We are human; we are not perfect.”
He disclosed that 379,997 candidates would retake the UTME from May 16 due to technical problems recorded at 157 of 887 examination centres.
JAMB also revealed that only 12,414 candidates scored 300 or above out of the 1.95 million who sat for the UTME, while over 78% scored below 200. Additionally, the board confirmed 97 cases of malpractice and reported more than 71,000 absentees.
