UTME mass failure intended to stop South-East children from getting admissions - ASUU

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has alleged that the mass failure recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam (UTME) was a deliberate attempt to sabotage candidates from the South-East region.

The Chairman of ASUU-UNN, Comrade Óyibo Eze, made the claim while briefing reporters in Nsukka on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.

He threatened to initiate a lawsuit against the Joint Matriculation Board (JAMB) over the development if the examination body fails to review the process and make provision for restitution.

“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.

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“ASUU will challenge this result in the High Court if JAMB fails to review the result and give candidates their merited scores.

“JAMB knows that children from the South East must score higher before they can get admission, whereas their counterparts in some parts of the country will use a 120 JAMB score to get admission to read medicine at universities in their area.

“In the JAMB recently released result, out of 1,955,069 candidates who sat for the 2025 examination, over 1.5 million candidates scored less than 200, and the majority of these are from the South East and Lagos State, where many Igbos reside,” he said.

Eze urged governors from the South-East to rise and challenged what he termed the targeted injustice towards preventing children from the zone from gaining admission into higher institutions in the country.

“The governors in the zone should not sit and watch JAMB toy with our children's academic future.

” I am not against the board punishing those found guilty of exam malpractice, but JAMB should not, because of these few candidates, fail the whole candidates in an exam centre,” he stated.

The ASUU chairman found it unbelievable and unacceptable that no candidate who sat for the exam at the University Secondary School, Nsukka, scored up to 200 in the UTME.

“This school has superlative students who have excelled in academics both inside and outside the school; how come all of them scored less than 200 in the exam?

“Even if JAMB discovered one or two candidates for exam malpractice, is that enough reason to fail all others who have prepared very hard for that exam?” he said.

Oyibo called on JAMB to act fast and review the result, noting that massive failure had become a national issue, which might attract national protest if nothing urgent was done.

Pulse reports that JAMB has admitted to errors in the 2025 UTME, which affected candidates across different centres in the country.

ALSO READ: Anambra, Lagos lead in 2025 UTME malpractices cases

During a media briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, apologised to affected candidates and their parents and reaffirmed that the examination body would continue to accept responsibility when it fails.

He noted that 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.