Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has applauded Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), for publicly acknowledging technical issues that affected the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results.
Obi’s reaction follows Oloyede’s emotional press briefing, where the registrar admitted to “technical glitches” that impacted the scores of over 379,997 candidates nationwide.
Oloyede, in a moment that has since drawn widespread attention, fought back tears as he expressed regret over the errors, which he said were unintended.
In a statement on Wednesday, Obi praised Oloyede’s courage to admit fault but emphasized that such failures must not be allowed to recur.
“Let’s not make glitches become a national crisis,” Obi wrote.
“I recently watched the heartfelt press conference delivered by the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, in which he acknowledged that technical glitches had affected the recently released JAMB results, impacting 379,997 candidates. His open admission of fault and the expression of deep remorse stand out as a rare but commendable display of accountability in our public institutions.”
While recognising JAMB’s efforts to swiftly address the fallout, Obi warned that the incident underscores a deeper institutional weakness.
“The incident has brought to light a far more troubling reality: the persistent fragility of our institutional systems,” he said.
He also lamented the psychological toll on affected students and families, some of whom reportedly suffered trauma and even loss of life due to the result anomalies.
“The emotional and psychological toll on students, and even parents, some of whom have reportedly suffered severe trauma, and in heartbreaking cases, even death, serves as a reminder of what is at stake,” he noted.
Obi called for the adoption of a comprehensive quality assurance framework by JAMB and similar agencies to safeguard the credibility of public examinations.
“JAMB and similar critical bodies must adopt comprehensive quality assurance frameworks. This includes rigorous testing and constant auditing of technical infrastructure,” he said.
He also stressed the need for transparent communication and swift resolution of issues to restore public trust in examination bodies.
“There must be no room for further glitches – not in JAMB, not in any arm of government. The cost of repeated failure is simply too high,” Obi added.
