•UTME candidates
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced a fresh round of mop-up examinations for candidates who missed the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, made the announcement today during a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, reports Nigerian Tribune.
He revealed that the initiative is designed to accommodate the over 5.6 per cent of candidates who were unable to participate in the just-concluded UTME, regardless of the reasons for their absence.
“This time, we are creating a new mop-up. Even those who missed the earlier exam due to absence will get another opportunity,” Oloyede said. “It’s not extraordinary. In any serious system, when students miss an exam, they’re allowed to make up, provided there’s no abuse.”
Oloyede reiterated that the UTME is a ranking tool used to allocate limited admission slots, and not a test of intelligence or academic potential.
“Its purpose is to rank candidates for limited admission slots, not to test how smart someone is,” he clarified.
Responding to criticisms and conspiracy theories surrounding the examination process, the registrar dismissed allegations of ethnic bias or administrative failure.
“I take responsibility, not because I failed, but because that’s leadership,” he said. “I didn’t even realise people viewed issues around me through ethnic lenses. We must rise above such profiling.”
He also commended both candidates and staff for their perseverance amid logistical challenges, noting that prompt action was necessary to ensure students did not miss out on academic opportunities.
“We had limited space. We knew if we wasted more time grieving the challenges, students would lose their opportunity,” Oloyede added.
JAMB assured that the date for the special mop-up examination will be announced soon, as it remains committed to transparency and fairness in the admission process.
Recall that 379,000 candidates sat for the rescheduled Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), instead of the 379,997 candidates initially recorded to have been impacted by the exam glitches on Wednesday.
