The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has dismissed claims that the hitches recorded during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) were the result of incompetence or ethnic discrimination.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, made this known in Abuja on Wednesday while addressing journalists at a stakeholders’ meeting convened to examine the challenges that marred this year’s UTME.
Oloyede firmly refuted allegations of ethnic sabotage, describing them as unfounded and politically motivated. He also rejected calls for his resignation, stressing that the issues that occurred during the exercise were due to human error, not a deliberate act.
“I’m not interested in the ethnic identity of those who made the mistake. As far as I’m concerned, and to the best of my knowledge, there was no sabotage. There was no glitch. It was purely a human error committed by some individuals,” the registrar said.
Reiterating his position, he added, “I say it for the fourth time—there is no place for conspiracy theories here. Whether those responsible are Igbo or not makes no difference to me. What matters is that they were workers from a service provider. They made a mistake, and we have since corrected it. I take full responsibility.”
Oloyede also called on stakeholders and the general public to resist the urge to inject ethnic sentiments into educational matters. He criticised those who he said are using the situation to push divisive narratives.
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It would be recalled that on May 14, JAMB announced that the results of 379,997 candidates from 157 centres, particularly in Lagos and South-East zones, were affected due to technical issues linked to a server update that prevented the uploading of candidate responses during the first three days of the exam.
Following the development, the House of Representatives on May 15 resolved to investigate the circumstances surrounding the glitches.
Similarly, the South-East caucus in the House had earlier, on April 19, demanded the resignation of the JAMB Registrar and called for the cancellation of the 2025 UTME, insisting a fresh examination be conducted.
While some lawmakers stakeholders have suggested an ethnic conspiracy, Oloyede has maintained that there is no evidence to support such a claim.
