Ngerians Reacts As JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede Bursts Into Tears Over Errors In 2025 UTME

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has admitted that technical errors negatively affected the performance of many students in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, got emotional on Wednesday while speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, saying the board takes full responsibility for what happened.

Holding back tears, Oloyede apologised to the affected candidates and described the incident as a major setback.

“Once again, we apologise and assure you that this incident represents a significant setback…. We remain committed to emerging stronger in our core values of transparency, fairness and equity.

“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,” Oloyede said as he wiped tears off his eyes with a white handkerchief.

Oloyede also revealed that about 379,997 students who wrote the 2025 UTME in the South-East will have to retake the exam.

This decision comes after numerous complaints from students and parents about poor scores, technical problems, and irregularities in the exam questions and answers.

In a post shared on JAMB’s official X (formerly Twitter) handle, the board confirmed that 157 out of the 887 exam centres experienced a technical glitch.

According to the board, this was the main reason for the low performance recorded in those centres.

“Man Proposes, God Disposes! It has been established that a technical glitch affected 157 centres out of the 887 centres in the 2025 UTME. This was basically responsible for the general low performance of the candidates scheduled to sit the examination in those centres.

“As such, all the affected candidates will be contacted to reprint their examination slips towards retaking their examinations starting from 16th May, 2025,” the post reads.

See some reactions below:

The two most useless and disgusting Leaders:

INEC Chairman – system glitch
JAMB Chairman – system glitch pic.twitter.com/AVB98uNGn1

— Ajiji 🌎 MIT (@Chief_Ajiji) May 14, 2025

The JAMB registrar is crying on national TV after deliberately failing students across all five South East states and Lagos?

This isn’t just incompetence. It’s educational sabotage. He should be arrested immediately.

— Rinu Oduala 🔥🔫 (@SavvyRinu) May 14, 2025

When a govt appoints ministers based on nepotism over competence, this is what you get, a man who studied Islamic Studies is heading JAMB, one of our most important academic institutions. Clueless ministers everywhere, and we expect the country to grow? APC will kill Nigeria pic.twitter.com/le7au0VzvO

— Anonymous NG (@AnonXNG) May 14, 2025

Experts have been calling this JAMB issue out since 2018. They called her names. Today, JAMB registrar is crying on national TV. @obyezeks pic.twitter.com/mAvoeZjB1O

— Rinu Oduala 🔥🔫 (@SavvyRinu) May 15, 2025

Well-meaning Nigerians, please look at these two slides. Frame one was taken on April 25th at a centre in Ogun State—see the children complaining about being logged out of the system? Frame two shows the protest at the JAMB office in Ibadan, where parents were angry that their… pic.twitter.com/MUMgOKCK5A

— Ara 🩷 (@Midatlblog) May 14, 2025

JAMB fixed the logic problem in other regions but somehow forgot to fix that of Lagos + SE?

It was deliberate, that was no coincidence. In Nigeria, at least since Bola’s Regime, there are no happenstances, nothing is as it seems.

It was sabotage (to arrive at a predetermined…

— NEFERTITI (@firstladyship) May 15, 2025

The same JAMB that was boasting some days ago is now crying today.

Let’s be careful ooo

— oseni rufai (@ruffydfire) May 15, 2025

JAMB fixes exam at 6:30am.
Nobody sacked. Nobody held accountable.

JAMB announce 76% failure rate.
Nobody sacked. Nobody held accountable.

Today JAMB has announced they made errors in almost 400,000 results. Nobody sacked. Nobody held accountable.

What kind of country is this?

— #OurFavOnlineDoc 🩺 🇬🇧 (@OurFavOnlineDoc) May 14, 2025

Nobody is going to trust JAMB results again. They’ve turned a national exam into a national joke.

— MBAH (@Mbahdeyforyou) May 14, 2025

If not for that guy who instituted a law suit, JAMB probably would have just gone “oops! children of nowadays, indomie generation” and then posted their yearly revenue with glee.

— Doctuche (@lidocaine_v2) May 14, 2025

KanyiDaily recalls that some frustrated parents recently gathered outside the JAMB office, protesting over unfairly low UTME scores for their children.