ABUJA, Nigeria — The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Sunday, May 25, 2025, announced that an overwhelming 99 per cent of candidates who sat for the rescheduled 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Lagos and five South-East states scored below 200 out of a possible 400 marks.
The results, released following the initial disruption caused by technical issues in April, showed that only a small fraction of the 336,845 candidates — approximately 3,368 — scored above 200, with very few reaching up to 217, according to JAMB’s Public Communication Adviser, Dr. Fabian Benjamin.
“The misleading questions posed by certain individuals regarding candidates who allegedly scored highly in the cancelled sessions who might desire to retain their previous results are totally unfounded,” Benjamin said in a statement.
“Only a handful scored up to 217 in the affected sessions, while 99% scored below 200 marks — indicating that there were no high scorers in the cancelled sessions of the affected six states.”
JAMB had earlier cancelled the results of candidates in several centres across Lagos, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states due to technical disruptions, prompting a nationwide resit examination.
Sunday’s statement clarified that concerns being raised about potential high-performing candidates in those cancelled sessions seeking to retain their original scores were unfounded and not supported by data.
“It is not unexpected that, given our circumstances, some opportunistic and mischievous individuals may attempt to exploit the situation for personal gain, thereby attempting to discredit not only the CBT process but also the Board itself,” Benjamin added.
He also disclosed that all rescheduled UTME results have now been released, except those involving candidates under investigation for examination infractions or those scheduled for a mop-up examination.
JAMB further noted that some previously released results have now been withdrawn based on fresh security intelligence, with affected candidates being notified directly via SMS, email, and their JAMB profiles.
The Board reiterated that the text message shortcodes (55019/66019), which candidates use to check their results, do not generate revenue for JAMB contrary to speculation.
The mass underperformance in the affected zones has triggered concern among educators and policy analysts, raising questions about the quality of instruction, digital readiness of CBT centres, and broader systemic issues affecting education in the region.
