LAGOS, Nigeria — A 19-year-old Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidate, Faith Opesusi, has died by suicide after scoring 146 out of 400 in the 2025 UTME, a score her family believes may have been compromised due to recent technical errors admitted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Faith, who had aspired to study Microbiology, reportedly ingested a poisonous substance shortly after checking her result on Saturday, May 9, 2025.
Her father, Oluwafemi Opesusi, confirmed the tragic incident in an interview with the BBC, saying the family was devastated by her death.
“She had a high score in 2024 UTME. This year, she was given 146. The pain of it drove her to commit suicide,” Mr Opesusi said.
“She didn’t open up. If she had, maybe I would have consoled her. We didn’t see this coming.”
The 2025 UTME results, released last week, showed that more than 78% of the over 1.9 million candidates scored below 200 points—the halfway mark on the 400-point scale.
The widespread low performance sparked protests across parts of the country, especially from students in Lagos and the South-East, who questioned the integrity of the examination process.
On Wednesday, May 14, 2025, JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede confirmed that a significant technical error had affected results in 157 examination centres in Lagos and the South-East, compromising the outcomes of nearly 380,000 candidates.
In an emotional press conference, Prof. Oloyede tearfully apologised to candidates and their families, saying, “I hold myself personally responsible and I unreservedly apologise for the trauma it has subjected affected Nigerians to.”
According to JAMB, all affected candidates will be required to retake the UTME between Thursday, May 15, 2025 and Monday, May 19, 2025.
However, no specific statement has yet been issued by the board regarding Faith Opesusi’s death or whether her result was among those flagged for technical review.
Faith’s father said the board never issued her original score and that her despair intensified after viewing her provisional result online.
“JAMB should have done better. Now we have lost our daughter,” he said.
