Fresh controversy has erupted over the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) chapter, raised serious allegations against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
On Wednesday, May 22, ASUU-UNN accused JAMB of deliberately targeting candidates from the South East in what it described as a calculated attempt to frustrate their chances of securing university admissions.
Speaking to the press in Nsukka, the ASUU-UNN Chairman, Óyibo Eze, revealed that his office had been overwhelmed with complaints from parents and concerned citizens following the release of the 2025 UTME results.
“My office has been inundated with protests, calls and visits by parents and the general public on this deliberate massive failure in the 2025 JAMB examination,” he stated.
Eze went on to warn that if JAMB does not address the alleged irregularities and adjust candidates’ scores accordingly, “ASUU will challenge this result in High Court if JAMB fails to review the result and give candidates their merited scores.”
According to him, there’s a long-standing expectation that candidates from the South East must attain higher scores to gain admission compared to students from other parts of the country.
In his words, over 1.5 million out of the total 1,955,069 candidates scored below 200 in the examination, with a significant number coming from the South East and Lagos, which he noted has a large population of Igbo people. He urged governors from the South East to take decisive action, insisting “the governors in the zone should not sit and watch JAMB toy with the academic future of our children.”
While Eze acknowledged the need to discipline candidates found guilty of exam malpractice, he condemned the blanket failure of entire exam centres based on isolated cases.
“It is unbelievable that in the whole University Secondary School, Nsukka, no candidate scored up to 200 in the UTME. This school has superlative students who excelled academically, yet all failed,” he lamented.
He argued that punishing innocent candidates because of a few offenders was unjust, saying “If JAMB discovered a few candidates for malpractice, is that enough reason to fail all others who prepared hard?”
Eze concluded by calling on JAMB to urgently re-evaluate the 2025 UTME results, warning that failing to address the issue could trigger nationwide protests and deepen tensions among affected communities.
