JAMB has ordered nearly 380,000 candidates in six states to retake the 2025 UTME due to technical issues at 157 centres.
Affected states include Lagos, Abia, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Anambra, with candidates already being notified of the rescheduled exams WAEC has agreed to accommodate affected candidates to avoid timetable clashes with the ongoing WASSCE exams.
Thousands of candidates across six Nigerian states will sit for a fresh round of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) acknowledged technical issues that compromised the integrity of the original results.
JAMB announced that a total of 379,997 candidates who sat for the UTME in 157 examination centres will be required to retake the test. The affected centres were located in two major zones: Lagos and Owerri.
South-east states most affected in glitch
The Owerri zone covers the five South-east states—Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo—while the Lagos zone affects candidates strictly within Lagos State.
A breakdown of the figures released by JAMB shows that 206,610 candidates wrote their initial exams in 65 centres within Lagos, while 173,387 sat for the UTME in 92 centres scattered across the South-east.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, confirmed the development following a review conducted in response to mounting complaints from candidates.
Many had taken to social media and various platforms to dispute their scores, claiming the results did not reflect their performance.
“After careful investigation, we found that a number of centres experienced technical issues that may have interfered with the proper conduct of the exams,” Oloyede stated.
“We have identified 157 centres where these issues were significant, and we have made arrangements for the affected candidates to retake the test.”
Candidates involved will be notified through multiple channels, including SMS, email, JAMB profile updates, and direct phone calls. The rescheduled exams are set to commence on Friday, 16 May.
New exam date to clash with ongoing WAEC
The board has also engaged the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which is currently conducting the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), to secure time slots that will prevent scheduling clashes for candidates participating in both exams.
This year’s UTME had over 1.9 million participants, with 78 percent scoring below 200 out of a total of 400 marks. The figure is consistent with statistics from previous years, according to Oloyede. In 2022, 78 percent also scored below 200, while in 2021, only 0.06 percent scored above 300.
JAMB maintains that while the general performance trend remains unchanged, the integrity of the examination process must be upheld—prompting the decision for a partial retake across the identified centres.
JAMB noted that no parent or proxy is allowed to make any transaction on candidates’ profiles or interfere with the registration “to avoid alterations and data mismatch”.
