UTME: South-East lawmakers advocate Oloyede’s resignation over system glitch, candidates’ failure

*The South-East Caucus of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, in the National Assembly, calls for resignation of Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB Registrar, and ‘immediate suspension of those at the commanding heights of JAMB’s digital operations and examination logistics’ over the recent errors in the 2025 UTME

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The South-East Caucus of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, in the National Assembly (NASS), in Abuja, FCT, has urged the resignation of Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), over a. technical glitch recorded in the recent 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

Hon. Igariwey Iduma Enwo, Leader of the South-East Caucus in the House of Representatives, who said this in a statement, also pushed for outright cancellation of the last UTME, and fix a new date for the exercise across Nigeria.

The caucus of the South-East Federal legislators described the outcome of the examination as a “national shame”.

‘Leadership must carry consequences’

The statement further noted: “To this end, we call for the immediate suspension of those at the commanding heights of JAMB’s digital operations and examination logistics.

“The registrar of JAMB is said to be a good man, but then, leadership must carry consequences.”

The Reps caucus said: “We, therefore, call on the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, to do the needful by resigning his appointment to pave the way for a thorough examination and remediation of the root causes of this national shame.

“That’s the way to go in any civilised democracy, and we expect no less.”

ConsumerConnect had reported Prof. Oloyede at a media briefing May 14 this year, had admitted that errors affected candidates’ performance during this year’s UTME held across different centres in the West Africa country.

The Registrar had told reporters: “It is our culture to admit errors because we know that in spite of the best of our efforts, we are human; we are not perfect.”

He equally announced that about 379,997 candidates would retake the examination, following widespread complaints of technical glitches, unusually low scores, and alleged irregularities in the questions and the answers during the exercise.

JAMB said it established that a technical glitch affected 157 out of the 887 centres, leading to the candidates’ general low performance.

On ‘tainted and flawed outcome of the 2025 UTME examination’

However, the South-East lawmakers, in the statement, emphasised their concerns because the five Southeastern states they represent, “with no exception,” were directly impacted by “JAMB’s so-called ‘score distortions’.”

According to them, the situation “is clearly a disastrous and catastrophic institutional failure that has shaken the trust and confidence of students and families across the country.”

The Federal lawmakers as well declared that apologies were not enough to address the implications of the national embarrassment that attended JAMB’s conduct of the 2025 UTME examination.

They stated: “However, for the thousands of students across the five South Eastern states of Nigeria, the tainted and flawed outcome of the 2025 UTME examination has clearly stripped and denied them of any ‘equal and adequate educational opportunities.”