A Kano-based law firm, A.A. Hikima & Co., has criticised the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over its selective decision to reschedule the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) only for candidates in Lagos and the South-east.
JAMB had on Wednesday announced that 379,997 candidates would retake their UTME across 157 centres in Lagos and the South-east after it found that a glitch affected the Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres, resulting in low scores for the candidates.
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But the law firm said it received reports of similar “even more severe technical issues” from candidates in Kano, Kebbi and Sokoto states.
In a Freedom of Information (FOI) letter signed by the firm’s principal partner, Abba Hikima, and submitted to JAMB, the firm listed the technical hitches to include incomplete or missing questions, system crashes and other glitches that prevented candidates from completing their exams.
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It added that there were also cases where candidates received fewer than the standard number of questions.
“Given this reality, it is deeply concerning and potentially discriminatory that JAMB has chosen to restrict the resit opportunity to specific regions, without offering equal redress to affected candidates in the north,” the letter reads in part.
Requests
The firm is requesting, under the FOI law, how JAMB selected centres for the rescheduled UTME, technical audits or internal reports on the conduct of the 2025 UTME; names and reports of ICT vendors assigned to each region, official complaints or petitions from affected northern states, and minutes of meetings where the resit decision was taken.
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The firm noted that the request is made in the public interest and asked that the information be released within seven days, as stipulated by the FOI Act.
How JAMB selected centres for resit
A review of the UTME results by JAMB and other stakeholders on Monday and Tuesday revealed a glitch that affected parts of the ‘LAG vehicle’ of JAMB’s operations.
JAMB explained that it grouped its operations into ‘KAD vehicle’ and ‘LAG vehicle’ for operational efficiency.
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.
According to JAMB Registrar Is-haq Oloyede, the glitch affected 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,” said Mr Oloyede, a professor.
As a result, the board rescheduled the UTME for 379,997 candidates across the 157 centres in Lagos and the South-east.
While 206,610 candidates were affected in the 65 centres in Lagos zone, 173,387 candidates were affected in 92 centres across Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, and Enugu states.
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