The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced it will conduct additional mop-up examinations for candidates who missed their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB revealed that approximately 5.6% of candidates were absent from their exams.
To accommodate these individuals, a special mop-up exercise will be organized, extending the opportunity to all affected candidates, regardless of the reason for their absence.
Professor Is-haq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, made this announcement in Abuja on Wednesday while addressing journalists during a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss challenges encountered during the 2025 UTME.
Oloyede acknowledged the emotional strain experienced when announcing the UTME results, but he clarified that this was not a sign of institutional weakness.
He maintained that JAMB remains dedicated to resolving issues impacting the examination process and rejected any suggestions that administrative failures were due to incompetence or ethnic bias.
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“I want to say this clearly, particularly because I accepted responsibility, not because I do not know how to do the work. People that work with me have testified to the fact that I do not care where you come from. Until this incident happened, I didn’t know that I was surrounded by many issues, because I didn’t look at them as issues, I looked at them as my friends.”
“But when things started happening and people are saying, ‘Which one is you?’ which is unfortunate because you need not look at where you come from. But I never knew, because I knew him as a human being who was performing his services. So please, let us not descend to the level of those people who are out there.”
“I say it for the fourth time that no conspiracy theory is relevant to this case. There is nothing to say north, south, or that you buy more outside. Something happened like people who have been doing something well for years and something just went wrong. I did not throw them under the bus. No.”
Professor Is-haq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, called upon stakeholders to cease ethnic profiling in education, criticizing those who exploit challenges to promote ethnic or conspiracy-driven narratives.
He stated that much of the criticism directed at JAMB’s operations stems from ignorance.
Oloyede praised his team’s efforts and affirmed that JAMB does not discriminate based on background or ethnicity. He also expressed gratitude for the resilience shown by candidates, many of whom persisted with their exams despite various difficulties.
“It was not easy at all, to be able to bring such things and say, look, I will sit there and then enjoy. We were doing that because at that time, the only space we had was the space that had a big science practical on Friday. And we felt that we could move in and get it. We couldn’t get that type of space for another two months, and we would have permanently deprived the students of their chance in life.
“So we knew that if we continued to mourn and groan about what had happened and allowed that space to escape, we might not recover it. I told the students, just like Griffith said, because you had over about 95% attendance across all sessions that’s a very reasonable attendance.
“We are also taking the decision that all those who missed that examination whatever the reason, the 5.6% or 6% that missed it we would not only mop up. Normally, we hold one mop-up nationwide for those with one issue or another. This time, we are creating a new mop-up. Even those who missed the earlier exam due to absence we will extend this opportunity to them.
“It’s not that we are doing something extraordinary. In class, you make up an examination when students miss it for one reason or the other. We just don’t allow abuse of that. So we will allow all the candidates who missed the main exam for any reason to take part in this mop-up.”
Professor Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, also criticized public commentators who he believes misunderstand or misrepresent the purpose of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
He clarified that the UTME is a placement test, not an achievement test. Its primary function is to rank candidates for available spaces in tertiary institutions, not to gauge intelligence or overall academic potential.
Oloyede stressed that high UTME scores alone do not guarantee admission, as a candidate’s final ranking can be significantly influenced by their combined performance, including post-UTME scores and school assessments.
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