Fresh details have emerged regarding the technical fault that disrupted the conduct of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
According to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the problem originated from an error made by a service provider, debunking allegations that it was motivated by ethnic bias or deliberate sabotage.
READ ALSO: JAMB admits to errors in UTME results
During a conversation hosted on X Spaces, JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, addressed concerns that the malfunction disproportionately affected candidates from the Southeast region, firmly dismissing such claims.
“It’s unfortunate. It’s something that we never envisaged,” he stated.
Benjamin clarified that the disruption was due to a critical oversight by an external contractor engaged by the board.
“What really happened? Let me just put it this way. Somebody was supposed to upload something, just as you send an email with your laptop and you see a sign that says sent and then you closed the laptop. The person just sent without waiting for it to deliver and then he shut down and left.
“This person, technically, is not even a staff of the board, but he’s a service provider that the board had hired, paid huge sum of money to do what he was supposed to do. I’m not supposed to go deep because it’s as if one is shifting responsibility,” he explained.
He emphasized that the incident stemmed from negligence, not any ill intent.
“It was just carelessness, he didn’t understand the responsibility that was placed on his shoulder. It’s unfortunate that this thing happened and a section of the country was involved. It’s unfortunate that, to some extent, it will begin to cast some aspersion on our area of operation,” he added.
In response to criticism aimed at JAMB’s leadership, particularly the Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, Benjamin firmly defended the board’s integrity and management.
“Someone of us feel like he’s too involved. He’s somebody that would want to know who even comes in at the gate. He’s involved in every aspect of the board. So the issue of whether incompetence or carelessness is not there. It’s just that no matter how involving you are, no matter how competent you are and no matter how engaging you are, as long as you cannot do the whole thing alone, certainly, somebody somewhere will let you down out of negligence,” he said.
This clarification comes in the wake of widespread concern following the release of the 2025 UTME results last Friday, which showed that more than 1.5 million candidates scored below 200 marks — over 75% of all those who took the test.
Subsequent investigations revealed that a technical fault had affected approximately 379,997 candidates, who have now been scheduled to retake the exam.
.){kind=link}