A former presidential spokesman, Laolu Akande, has called on Nigerians to encourage the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede, for admitting to errors in the conduct of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, rather than crucify him.
Akande said this on ‘Sunrise Daily’, a breakfast show on Channels Television on Friday.
DAILY POST reports that Oloyede, in a rare admission, told a news conference in Abuja earlier in the week that there were glitches in the recently-conducted UTME.
This has split opinions among Nigerians, with many demanding Oloyede’s resignation.
However, Akande said the JAMB chief deserves commendation for the work he has done so far in the fight against examination malpractice.
“A lot of cheating is going on. We are having very troubling circumstances and situations where parents are paying for people to sit for their wards. It’s become a pandemic, and Oloyede is moving against that.
“And so we have to be careful not to let the people that are on the receiving end of that important reform use this occasion to push back against somebody like Oloyede or even the education minister, who is clearly also reform-minded. So my take is that: Oloyede has come out to say that, ‘Hey, this is, this is an embarrassment. I take responsibility’.
“Not many people would behave that way. So, we need to encourage him to continue to reform, and we need to encourage the minister,” he said.
JAMB’s admission of error in the 2025 results came following backlash over the conduct of this year’s UTME, the entrance examination into tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
After claims of glitches, unusually poor scores and other issues, JAMB called for a review of the examination, after which it admitted to problems in the 2025 UTME.
According to Oloyede, 379,997 candidates affected by the glitches would retake the UTME, beginning from May 16, 2025.
The Board further stated that the technical issue happened in 157 out of the 887 centres where the examination took place across the country, resulting in unusually low scores.
