Reps divided over calls for JAMB registrar to resign

Indications have emerged that members of the House of Representatives are divided over the call on the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, to resign his position.

This came to the fore when members of the House Committee on Basic Education Examination Bodies, led by Oboku Oforji, on Tuesday at a press conference, remarked that Oloyede should be left to take the decision to resign from his position based on moral grounds.

Flanked by members of the committee, Oforji called for an independent and thorough investigation into the matter.

While apologising on behalf of JAMB to all Nigerians, the committee noted that the JAMB Registrar deserves praise for accepting the fault on behalf of his team and even going a step further to apologise to parents, candidates, and the nation.

Noting that the glitches that occurred during the conduct of the UTME exams were due to negligence by JAMB, the committee expressed its deep sympathy for the candidates affected by the errors experienced during the examination.

“JAMB has consistently made efforts throughout the examination process, from registration to the release of results. Unfortunately, errors, which can arise unexpectedly, occurred this time. I would like to state unequivocally that the members of the National Assembly share these concerns and extend their apologies to the Nigerian public,” Oforji said.

The committee’s position is in sharp contrast to the stance taken on Monday by the South East caucus of the House of Representatives, which insisted on the resignation of the JAMB Registrar to pave the way for a thorough examination and remediation of the root causes of what it termed a “national shame.”

The caucus, led by Rt. Hon. Igariwey Iduma Enwo had, in a statement, called on JAMB authorities to fix a new date for the conduct of the exams across the country.

The caucus insisted that apologies, platitudes, and public relations campaigns are not enough to address the far-reaching and gargantuan implications of the national embarrassment that attended JAMB’s conduct of the 2025 UTME examination.

The caucus expressed concern that the five Southeastern states they represent, without exception, were directly impacted by JAMB’s so-called “score distortions.”

Stating that they have shown restraint and waited for JAMB’s remedial measures in addressing what is clearly a disastrous and catastrophic institutional failure that has shaken the trust and confidence of students and families across the country, they stated unequivocally that what JAMB has offered in remediation falls far short of the expectations of their impacted constituents.

“Indeed, JAMB’s knee-jerk and fire-brigade approach has been anything but sufficient, nor desirable. Traumatised students in the South Eastern states, many of whom are still taking their WAEC examinations, have been invited, in less than 48 hours’ notice, to present themselves to retake the rescheduled UTME examination. Reports indicate that the notice was far too short for most of the students, resulting in low turnout, and in some cases, the rescheduled date has clashed with ongoing WAEC examination papers. The outcome has been heart-wrenching for students and parents, and agonisingly shambolic, to say the very least,” they noted.

“We need not remind Nigerians that JAMB, as an agency of government, is expected to uphold the fundamental obligations of government to its citizens.

“Indeed, the framers of our constitution, in recognition of the pivotal primacy of education to our national development, clearly stated in Section 18(1) of the 1999 Constitution, that ‘Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.’

“This principle has, by recent judicial pronouncements, assumed the status of an enforceable right to every Nigerian child. However, for the thousands of students across the five South Eastern states of Nigeria, the tainted and flawed outcome of the 2025 UTME examination has clearly stripped and denied them of any ‘equal and adequate educational opportunities.’”

Recall that last week, particularly on the 14th of May 2025, Oloyede made the shocking public admission that due to “a technical glitch” that occurred in some of its examination centres during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), some 379,997 out of 1.9 million students who sat for the examination would need to resit it.