Reps to Probe mass failure in 2025 UTME
By Ndukaku Ihe
The House of Representatives on Thursday, resolved to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mass failure recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
AbeyaNews reports that the House mandated its Committee on Basic Examinations to undertake the probe and report back to it within four weeks for further legislative actions.
Also, the parliament, while urging the Federal Government to establish Computer Based Test (CBT) centres across the 774 local government areas in the country, mandated its Committee on Appropriations to capture the cost in the 2026 budget.
Furthermore, the Green Chamber charged the Federal Government to direct the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) to release the results of all the students who are under 16 years who participated in the 2025 UTME.
The mass failure in the 2025 UTME has sparked outrage across the country. However, the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, at a press briefing, on Wednesday, admitted that technical errors affected the results of 379,997 candidates in Lagos and the South East.
This followed the adoption of a motion by Morufu Adewale urging the parliament to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mass failure recorded in the 2025 UTME. Adewale, in his lead debate, lamented that several candidates were forced to travel long distances to enable them access CBT centres, with the attendant risks.
He said, “This is Nigeria’s poorest UTME performance since 2016.The worst performance over a two-year period occurred in 2021, when 87.2% of the candidates scored below 200 marks. The second worst performance occurred in 2020, when 79.2% of the candidates scored below 281.”
Ogunbanwo Olufemi, in his contribution, wondered why some of the examinations were scheduled for 6:30am, not minding security concerns. He expressed dismay that JAMB withheld the results of candidates who are under 16 years of age, despite an earlier resolution of the House, suspending the policy barring such candidates from admission.
