Chaos & Frustration: 2025 JAMB UTME Leaves Candidates in Pain and Distress Nationwide
She kept questioning whether it was a dream or possibly a passage from Franz Kafka’s existentialist vision, which strained her imagination and plausibility.
She realized she was in the real world and not dreaming as she squeezed herself. The reason for this was that her paper was scheduled for 6:30 am on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) portal for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in April. Biola, like a lot of students, found it hard to believe.
I started to question how they expected me to leave the house early since I couldn’t understand. “I was disturbed,” Biola remarked.
She lived in Aguda Surulere, but JAMB had placed her center in Ajah, which was more than an hour away, even in the early hours of the morning, and she was supposed to arrive by 6.30 am. The reasoning behind her being sent to Ajah to write her exam in Lagos, which is known for its unexpected traffic jams and early-morning operations of outlaws and small-time crooks waiting for victims, was incomprehensible to her father, a printer in Mushin.
“At first, I believed that JAMB had made a scheduling mistake, but this irrational feeling quickly vanished when I met my companions, who were assigned to locations far from their homes.
Although this was not her first attempt at the test, it was the first time she would be writing the UTME, which was a few minutes after sunrise.
Her prior attempt failed to earn the required cutoff point for admission to read medicine, which was her intended field of study.
Biola thought about the dilemma. She and her parents resided in a gated community that officially opens at 6:30 a.m.
To avoid taking a chance, her father chose to search for a dilapidated motel in Ajah, where they paid N10,000. In these difficult times, this was yet another surprise.
Remarkably, she was not alone in her experience; over fifteen applicants who had exams at 6:30 am also stayed overnight.
Various Strokes
In contrast to the vileness of what others endured, Biola’s experience was a luxury. Toyin, who lives in Ketu, had a center somewhere in Ajagbadi. When he contacted the tutorial center where he had enrolled, they informed him that he had registered late and that he had no choice but to use what he had been provided because the quota had been “filled.” He was enraged.
He was uneasy due to the stress and worry around the unknown center in a similarly new neighborhood. He visited the center a day before the test in an attempt to get some solace from his terrible circumstances.
He was compelled to join a group of nightcrawlers who were having fun in a dilapidated motel that was crowded with sex workers. He simply sat there and watched the world go by at night, the pleasures and sorrows of the various personalities that lived in that dilapidated motel. After removing his toothbrush, cleaning his face, armpits, and teeth, and joining the JAMBITES band at the center, he slithered out of that hellhole like a cobra at around 5:30 in the morning. Under his breath, he swore.
Parents and students nationwide have denounced the near-anarchy and frustration caused by the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which began on Thursday, April 24.
A Comedy of Mistakes and Complaints
The JAMB computer-based test (CBT) centers have been plagued by several allegations of network and technical issues that have delayed or prevented applicants from taking the test. Numerous applicants who took the test on Friday, April 25, said it was the worst experience they had ever had and that it was horrible.
Some reported that the questions were more difficult and intellectually taxing than anticipated, particularly in the areas of mathematics, physics, and commerce.
Ugonma Perpetual, who took her UTME at Mount Gilead Convent in Igando, Lagos State, told Business Hallmark that there were issues with the use of English at her center. She said that questions one through ten only showed answers, and there were more questions than were allowed.
“Our English should be one to sixty, but it was one to fifty-five, and question number ten didn’t show up,” she stated.
Nmesoma, another candidate, talked about her worry following a technical problem during her exam, in which her computer abruptly shut down before she could complete it.
“My computer shut down by itself. “Will my responses be sent in?” she inquired.
Despite coming early, Saviour Essien had a frustrating but regrettably typical experience during this year’s UTME: enduring lengthy delays.
To ensure I didn’t miss the 6:30 am exam, I hurried and skipped meals. However, the examination at 6:30 am is at 8:00 am,” he stated.
The unseen hardships that many applicants endure only to stay on time are highlighted in Saviour’s account, only to be let down at the testing location.
A candidate described how a center at Rochas Foundation School, Old Airport Road, Jos, Plateau State, experienced severe delays and uncertainty due to a system breakdown and inadequate arrangements.
“I had the same difficulty at Rochas Foundation School on Old Airport Road in Jos, Plateau State. I arrived before 7:00 am, even though my exam was scheduled at 9 am.
For nearly seven hours, we waited.
We had to do another reprint since they had to switch our center. We were directed to a different center.
Due to a system breakdown, several individuals with lower incomes were unable to pay for the transportation from our old facility to the new one.
We had disagreements with those who were expected to write by 3 p.m. at the new center. We didn’t complete until 8 p.m. after waiting for them until about 5:30 p.m.
The candidate claimed, “It was a disgrace, and the questions they asked us were not what we expected.”
“My daughter had a similar problem at Mountain Top University CBT center, Ogun State,” said a parent, bemoaning the frustration his daughter endured while taking the 2025 UTME.
“On Thursday, April 24, she arrived at the center early enough for the exam at 2:00 p.m. I discovered that roughly six of them experienced computer malfunctions when the test began.
According to what I’ve learned, the impacted applicants asked the center’s invigilators to transfer them to other open machines so they could fulfill the deadline, but they weren’t attended to right away.
He bemoaned the fact that they insisted on telling them, “The challenge was from the JAMB network in Abuja.”
April 26 was, in fact, a red-letter day for many innocent JAMB applicants; it was the day when their hope for a better future cruelly died.
On their way to take the JAMB exam that day, several students lost their lives in a sad accident on the Oyo-Ogbomoso route in Oyo State.
According to a video recording that Business Hallmark was able to view, the incident happened early on Saturday morning. The children were transported in a commercial vehicle to an Ogbomoso JAMB center.
According to on-scene witnesses, the vehicle’s brakes failed, causing the collision.
The caption for the video read, “Students who were going to write JAMB in Ogbomosho on Oyo road, Oyo State, died in a fatal accident.”
The extent of malpractice
The 27 impersonators who were caught were turned over to the Nigerian police for prompt prosecution, according to JAMB.
Additionally, the board declared that it has delisted four CBT centers for failing to meet the strict technological requirements for the UTME.
In a statement released on Friday by its spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, JAMB stated, “While JAMB commends the 883 centers that have demonstrated exceptional performance, it unequivocally warns that any center, regardless of ownership, will be blacklisted.”
“To access their new centers and rescheduled dates, candidates who were originally scheduled to sit their exams at the delisted centers are recommended to reprint their examination notification slips immediately.
It stated, “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but we will not accept excuses from candidates who do not reprint their slip to obtain their updated schedules.”
According to the board, “of the 2,083,600 candidates registered for the 2025 examination, over 900,000 have completed the UTME as of Friday, April 25, 2025.”
Every year, JAMB administers the UTME, a standardized entrance exam, to prospective undergraduate students at Nigerian postsecondary educational institutions.
Depending on the course they choose to take, applicants are assessed in four different subjects.
Every year, more people are signing up for the test.
About 1.9 million applicants took the test in 2024. In 2025, the number rose to 2,030,627 candidates.
In past years, some candidates had to travel to other states to take the test. However, JAMB stressed that in 2025, it will only send applicants to testing locations in their hometown. Business Hallmark discovered that JAMB had previously scheduled tests for 6:30 am.
JAMB argues for timing.
However, the JAMB has defended its practices, stating that exams should begin at 8:00 a.m., not 6:00 a.m. This comes despite allegations on Friday that Esther Oluwafayofunmi Oladele, a UTME candidate, went missing during her commute from Epe to Ajah, Lagos State, in preparation for the UTME.
On Thursday, Esther had texted her sibling in a panic, saying, “I’m scared.” I believe I got into the incorrect vehicle. I feel tired and my eyes are itchy,” which caused a lot of concern online.
Nigerians intensified their search after Johnson, the student’s relative, posted about her predicament on X. The Ajiwe Police Station in Ajah was notified of the case right away. Thankfully, Esther was eventually located unharmed.
The public’s already growing ire over UTME and mock UTME scheduling logistical issues was heightened by the incident.
Rufai Oseni, a well-known broadcaster, previously aired grievances from anxious parents. One parent claimed that their child, who was registered in Osun State, was sent to a rural village in Kwara State for the mock exam. In Abeokuta, another parent described how their child was placed in Jalingo, which was distant from where they had registered.
The Labour Party’s 2023 presidential contender, Peter Obi, offered his thoughts on the subject. Obi denounced the systemic shortcomings that force disadvantaged children to travel at great risk for exams that start as early as 6:30 a.m. in a statement that was put on X.
It is careless to schedule tests for susceptible youngsters at such early hours and require them to go to far and frequently dangerous places, Obi said.
In contrast to Indonesia, which has 4,000 tertiary institutions for a comparable population size, Nigeria, with a population of around 230 million, only has roughly 200 universities, he emphasized, underscoring the country’s poor educational expenditure.
JAMB, however, defended its practices, claiming that exams begin at 8:00 a.m. rather than 6:00 a.m.
The exam itself starts at 8:00 a.m., however, the verification and clearance procedures start at 6:30 a.m.
Candidates are essentially forced to leave their homes even earlier, frequently by 5:00 a.m. or earlier in some situations, especially for those assigned remote centers, as the printed examination slips, which are visible to numerous candidates and parents, plainly specify 6:30 a.m. as the reporting time.
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