The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has revealed that he briefly considered stepping down following a major technical glitch that affected the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Oloyede made this known during a meeting held on Wednesday in Abuja with chief external examiners, civil society groups, and other stakeholders in the tertiary education sector.
During the session, the JAMB head addressed the controversy surrounding the examination and the growing demands for his resignation.
There were accusations from some critics, suggesting ethnic favoritism and deliberate sabotage linked to the UTME incident.
“When it happened, my first reaction was to resign. But people advised me that the students will never forgive me because it will look like you abandoned them at such a time,” Oloyede stated.
According to DAILY POST, the 2025 UTME results were announced on May 9, with data showing that more than 78% of candidates scored below 200 out of a possible 400 points.
In response to the public outrage, JAMB initiated an internal investigation, which uncovered a serious technical issue that compromised the validity of the exam results.
It will be recalled that on May 14, Oloyede disclosed that the results of 379,997 candidates from 157 centres located in Lagos and the South-East were affected by the glitch.
He explained that a faulty server update from one of JAMB’s technical service partners caused a failure in uploading candidates’ answers during the first three days of the UTME. The problem was only discovered after the results had already been released.
To address the situation, JAMB scheduled a resit for the affected candidates, which commenced on May 16 and extended beyond May 19.
