A member of the House of Representatives, Iduma Igariwey, has strongly urged the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to cancel the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). He described the last examination as a “catastrophic institutional failure,” arguing that it has significantly compromised the integrity and fairness of the examination process.
Speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday evening, Igariwey, who leads the South-East Caucus in the House of Representatives, pointed to JAMB’s recent admission of errors during the conduct of the 2025 UTME, stating that this acknowledgment does not justify proceeding with the entrance test.
“The whole thing has lost its integrity. It has lost its fairness. People who took the time and prepared for exams were no longer in a position to take those exams,” he asserted, emphasizing the need for a proper administration of the examination.
Further criticizing JAMB’s management of the situation, Igariwey remarked, “What we mainly did was to say these exams just must be done the proper way, the right way. So, that’s why we are saying that the exam has to be cancelled, so that the right thing is done in the first place.”
JAMB attributed the examination issues to a “technical glitch” and “human error,” but the lawmaker condemned the decision to reschedule the exams within 48 hours as “unreasonable and poorly thought out.” He highlighted the concerns raised after JAMB’s announcement, expressing disbelief at the rapid turnaround for resits.
“If you recall, you see that we were very restrained in taking a decision,” he noted. “The caucus reacted to what Professor Ishaq (Oloyode) told Nigerians on the 14th of May,” after the JAMB leader admitted to the significant failures affecting nearly 400,000 students who had to resit their exams.
“That has never happened in the history of this country. And I’m sure it came as a shock to Nigerians,” he added. Igariwey detailed the chaotic situation surrounding the re-exams, stating that many students faced logistical hurdles that prevented them from attending.
“JAMB cannot just, after two days, set another set of exams,” he contended. “You haven’t even told Nigerians that you have corrected whatever led to the initial problem. People are calling for an investigation. People are calling for an examination of what happened. And then you have set those exams right immediately again.”
He lamented the accessibility issues faced by students, noting that many were unaware of last-minute changes to their examination centers, resulting in significant absenteeism during the resits.