The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has vowed to clamp down on computer-based test (CBT) centres involved in widespread fraud during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), with operators facing jail terms and permanent closure of their centres.
Chairman of the JAMB Special Committee on Examination Infractions (SCEI), Jake Epelle, disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Monday night, where he described the level of malpractice uncovered as “mind-blowing.”
“What we saw is mind-blowing, the manipulations, the transactions; you will see young people with a lot of technology in their hands. It’s amazing,” Epelle said.
“In one of the sessions, I addressed the police investigating, and I said, ‘I want to see this person in jail.’ It’s not a question of investigating this and letting people go scot-free. A lot of CBT centres are going to be shut down, their equipment taken from them, and the owners end up in jail.”
The committee’s investigation documented over 4,000 cases of fraud, including 4,251 instances of “finger blending” (biometric manipulation), 192 cases of AI-assisted impersonation through image morphing, 1,878 false disability claims, forged credentials, multiple National Identification Number (NIN) registrations, and collusion between candidates and exam syndicates.
Epelle stressed that while JAMB has some of the best technologies for exam management, however, certain individuals were bent on compromising the system.
“The education sector is in trouble,” he warned. “The situation would have been worse if JAMB had not applied technology. The system is not to blame, we are in an AI age where technology is exploited by smart people.”
The committee chairman did not spare parents, accusing them of fueling exam malpractice.
“Eighty per cent of these infractions are caused by parents who want to give marks to their children that they don’t deserve. This is my call to JAMB: the time has come to name and shame,” he declared.
“These same parents go on air and say all kinds of evil against JAMB, disgrace the system, and threaten to sue. Many of them go on air with SANs. Meanwhile, by the time they start interrogating, they start begging Oloyede; it has happened, we saw the cases.”
He added that some schools and tutorial centres were equally culpable.
The committee’s report, submitted to JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede in Abuja, followed weeks of investigation involving security agencies and experts.
Recall that JAMB itself admitted to technical glitches that marred this year’s UTME, affecting 157 of the 887 exam centres. This resulted in unusually low scores for thousands of candidates and forced the board to order a resit for about 380,000 students.
An emotional Oloyede apologised during a press briefing in Abuja, saying the agency took full responsibility.
“Once again, we apologise and assure you that this incident represents a significant setback,” Oloyede said as he fought back tears, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “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.”
The board has since announced that affected candidates would retake their exams starting May 16, 2025.
LEADERSHIP reports that JAMB’s breakdown of the 2025 UTME results showed that of the 1.95 million candidates who sat the exam, 1.53 million (78.5%) scored below 200.
Only 4,756 candidates (0.24%) scored 320 and above, 7,658 candidates (0.39%) scored between 300–319 and 334,560 candidates (17.1%) scored between 200–249.
The largest group, 983,187 candidates (50.3%), scored between 160–199 and 2,031 candidates (0.1%) scored below 100.
The Special Committee recommended that JAMB adopt stronger reforms, including AI-powered biometric anomaly tools, real-time monitoring, and a central examination security operations centre to tackle malpractice in future exercises.
