The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Special Committee on Examination Infractions (SCEI) has said that computer-based centres found culpable in the over 4,000 cases of exam fraud uncovered by the committee will be shut down and their owners jailed.

“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.

“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 chairman of the committee, Jake Epelle, said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.

Epelle explained that the infractions uncovered by the committee showed that the education sector is in trouble.

He said that while JAMB had one of the best technologies in the management of examinations, some individuals were interested in compromising the agency’s operations.

According to him, the situation would have been worse if the agency had not applied technology in its operations.

He also said some employees were negligent in their duties.

Asked whether the fraud indicated that JAMB’s system had been compromised, he said the agency’s system was not to blame, as the world was in an AI age, where technology is exploited by smart people.

‘80% of infractions caused by parents’

Meanwhile, Epelle stated that 80 per cent of the examination malpractices were caused by parents desperate to “give marks” that their children did not deserve, urging the management of JAMB to “name and shame” errant parents.

“Guess what? 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.

“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.”

The committee chair, however, said parents were not the only culprits, as schools and tutorial centres were also culpable.

Epelle said the report of the committee was a result of investigations involving security agencies and other experts.

He, however, said the committee’s terms of reference did not include investigating the glitch the agency said was responsible for the discrepancy in the results of the 2025 UTME.

The committee chairman said, “I didn’t investigate that. The ones that I investigated were specific infractions. There was a committee that was set up, and they did an extensive interrogation of the system, and that report has been given to him [the JAMB registrar], and he has shared it with the minister.”

While presenting the report in Abuja to the JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, the committee said the team uncovered 4,251 cases of “finger blending” and 192 instances of AI-assisted impersonation through image morphing during its investigations into the 2025 UTME.

Beyond finger blending and Artificial Intelligence impersonation, the committee stated that it documented 1,878 false disability claims, forged credentials, multiple National Identification Number (NIN) registrations, and collusion between candidates and examination syndicates.

The panel, inaugurated on August 18, was charged with the responsibility of probing rising infractions, reviewing JAMB’s systems, and recommending reforms.

The committee also called on JAMB to adopt a multi-pronged response that includes deploying AI-powered biometric anomaly tools, real-time monitoring, and a central examination security operations centre.

Outrage over UTME results

Following widespread complaints of unusually low scores, the examination body in May admitted that errors affected candidates’ performance during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, which was held across different centres in the country.

JAMB said some candidates would retake the examination.

Oloyede, who disclosed this during a media briefing in Abuja and also fought back tears while admitting to the error, said, “Once again, we apologize and assure you that this incident represents a significant setback…. 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,” Oloyede said as he wiped tears off his eyes with a white handkerchief.

He also announced that about 379,997 candidates in the just concluded 2025 exercise would retake the examination.

In a post on its X handle, the examination body stated that a technical glitch affected 157 out of the 887 centres, which it said was responsible for the general low performance of the candidates.

It said, “Man Proposes, God Disposes! It has been established that a technical glitch affected 157 centres out of the 887 centres in the 2025 UTME. This was basically responsible for the general low performance of the candidates scheduled to sit the examination in those centres.

“As such, all the affected candidates will be contacted to reprint their examination slips towards retaking their examinations starting from 16th May, 2025.”

Breakdown

JAMB released a statistical breakdown of the 2025 UTME, which revealed that over 1.5 million of the 1.95 million candidates who took the examination scored below 200.

In a post on its official X on May 5, it highlighted that 1,955,069 candidates sat for the examination, and 1,534,654 candidates—representing 78.5 percent—scored below the 200 mark.

A breakdown of the results showed that only 4,756 candidates (0.24 percent) achieved scores of 320 and above, while 7,658 candidates (0.39 percent) scored between 300 and 319.

Just 12,414 candidates (0.63 percent) scored 300 and above.

For the 250-299 score range, 73,441 candidates (3.76 percent) were recorded, while a larger proportion, 334,560 candidates (17.11%), scored between 200 and 249.

The category with the highest number of candidates was the 160 to 199 range, with 983,187 candidates (50.29 percent).

Further down the scale, 488,197 candidates (24.97 percent) scored between 140 and 159, and 57,419 candidates (2.94 percent) scored between 120 and 139.

A percentage of candidates, 3,820 (0.20 percent), scored between 100 and 119, while 2,031 candidates (0.10 percent) fell below the 100 mark.

The agency also ordered an immediate review of the 2025 UTME, dismissing claims of conspiracy against a part of the country. (Channels TV)

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