6 States where 379997 candidates will retake 2025 UTME from May 16 (SEE FULL LIST & PROCEDURE)

 6 States where 379997 candidates will retake 2025 UTME from May 16 (SEE FULL LIST & PROCEDURE)

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced a retake of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for 387,000 candidates across six states.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, after a meeting held with education stakeholders in Abuja, admitted responsibility for the mass failure that trailed the examination.

He announced that about 379,997 candidates in the just concluded 2025 examination would retake the examination.

Prof. Oloyede, who wept profusely, intermittently wiping his face with a handkerchief, said he took full responsibility for the negligence of its staff.

“As Registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible, including for the negligence of the service provider, and I unreservedly apologise for it and the trauma that it has subjected affected Nigerians to, directly and indirectly."

JAMB had earlier released a statistical breakdown of the 2025 UTME, where it revealed that over 1.5 million of the 1.95 million candidates who took the examination scored below 200. 

In a post on its official X on May 5, it highlighted that a total of 1,955,069 candidates sat for the examination, and of this number, a significant 1,534,654 candidates—representing 78.5 percent —scored below the 200 mark.

Compared to the previous one, the performance pattern hasn’t changed much. In 2024, only a very small percentage of candidates scored above 300, and just about a quarter reached or passed the 200 mark.

On issues of exam conduct, JAMB confirmed that some candidates were involved in malpractice, and many others are under investigation. Thousands of students were absent, and some had problems with biometric verification. For those with valid issues, JAMB said it’s planning to reschedule their exams once cleared.

The JAMB registrar said the technical glitch experienced in the 2025 UTME occurred in 157 exam centers (65 in Lagos, 92 in Owerri zone) due to improper application of a software patch by the service provider.

Oloyede explained that JAMB groups the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) into ‘KAD vehicle’ and ‘LAG vehicle’ to manage operations efficiently and in a balanced way.

KAD vehicle comprises all South-south states and most Northern states except Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi, and Abuja.

LAG vehicle comprises all states in the South-west and South-east as well as Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi, and Abuja.

He explained that the mixed grouping is deliberate and is meant to prevent any regional bias in how the examinations are organised across regions.

Oloyede noted that after the mock exams, the board noticed that the exam questions were not properly shuffled in the LAG category. The board shuffles questions so candidates have different questions, which makes it harder to copy or cheat.

The board corrected this problem and tested the fix ahead of the actual UTME.

“However, on Friday, 25 April, the second day of the actual UTME, JAMB found that there were omissions in the LAG category.”

Oloyede said corrections were made instantly and tested on Saturday, Sunday and Monday before they were applied after 12 a.m on Tuesday.

“That was why all the examinations from Tuesday till the end of UTME had no problem,” he said.

The JAMB Registrar said to correct and re-upload the results from LAG for the glitch from Thursday to Monday, the service providers concerned with the ‘LAG vehicle’ were deployed to effect the patch.

He said, unfortunately, the errors were still found in two locations –Lagos zone and Owerri Zone–, resulting in errors in the candidates’ results.

“In clear terms, in the process of rectifying the issue, the technical personnel deployed by the Service Provider for LAG (Lagos and South-east zones) inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery servers,” he explained.

“Regrettably, this oversight went undetected prior to the release of the results.”

List of 6 affected states are:

Lagos

Imo

Anambra

Enugu

Abia

Ebonyi

In the press briefing, JAMB said that all the candidates affected in the 157 centres out of 882 centres will be contacted to retake their examinations starting from Friday, May 16, 2025.

These candidates are to be contacted through text messages addressed to their registered phone numbers, their email addresses, their profiles and phone calls by JAMB.

They will be directed to reprint their Examination Slips for the rescheduled examination dates.

JAMB noted that WAEC exams are currently ongoing, but they’ve worked things out with WAEC to avoid clashes.

It said; “While not oblivious of the fact that WAEC examinations are ongoing, we have contacted WAEC and in an unprecedented show of solidarity, the Council has graciously decided to as much as possible accommodate us within the WAEC time-slot. Any candidate with a clash of timetable, particularly for Agricultural Science on Friday, would be rescheduled.

“However, we have endeavored to ensure that no such exist. Most, if not all, such candidates are scheduled for Saturday. Fortunately, the prescribed texts for SSCE are also the prescribed texts for UTME apart from the reading text of the UTME, which carries just 10 marks in our Use of English test.”