Reveals Outcome of Investigation on Candidate who Claimed have Scored 326
- Safiu Kehinde
The Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) has faulted the tribal and sectional narratives surrounding the technical error experienced in results of several candidates of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
As contained in a statement issued by JAMB’s Public Communications Advisor, Fabian Benjamin, the board’s Chief External Examiners (CEE) refuted the claims that the error was targeted at a particular section of the country.
While noting that the narratives risk exacerbating existing divisions within society, the examiners in a meeting held after the UTME resit hailed JAMB’s Registrar, Prof Isiaq Oloyede, and other members of the board over their handling of the unfortunate incident.
“The meeting expressed with regret the attempts by some groups to exploit the unfortunate incident to disseminate tribal and sectional narratives.
“The unfortunate incident is not targeted at any section of the country, neither was it caused by any particular section of the country.
“It was emphasised that such narratives risk exacerbating existing divisions within society and even the JAMB workforce.
“The meeting commended the Registrar and the Management of JAMB for the competent and sincere handling of the unfortunate accident and urged them to remain steadfast and courageous.” Fabian wrote.
Meanwhile, JAMB also clarified case of candidates who alleged to have scored highly at the initial examination and as such desired to retain the previous result rather than taking the resit.
The board held that no candidate scored up to 217 in the affected sessions while citing the case of Olisa Chkwuemeka, who claimed in a post on his X handle to have scored 326.
Investigation would however revealed sharp practices orchestrated by the candidate in obtaining the fake result.
“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 as 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.
“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.
“A notable example is Mr. Olisa Gabriel Chukwuemeka, a first-year Public Health student at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), Ondo State, who posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @swagpriest2, falsely claimed to have achieved a score of 326 in the 2025 UTME.
“This claim incited public outrage against the Board and was subsequently disseminated by various online platforms.
“Upon investigation, the Board found Mr. Olisa’s assertions to be entirely fabricated as he had doctored his original 2024 UTME score of 203, misrepresenting it as a 2025 UTME result with a score of 326.
“In reality, he sat for the 2025 UTME in Lagos State, where his actual score (prior to withdrawal) was 180.
“Following the exposure of his deceit, Mr. Olisa deactivated his account on X. There are similar cases of opportunistic attempts.” Fabian wrote.
However, the JAMB’s spokesperson disclosed that released result excluded candidates who committed examination infractions and those slated for mop-up examinations.
“All results are now released except those of candidates who committed examination infractions and those slated for mop-up examinations.
“While releasing the results, it should be emphasised that recent discoveries particularly by the security agencies have necessitated the withdrawal of some of the results of implicated candidates across the country whose results have been previously released.
“Candidates with earlier released results need not recheck their results as candidates affected by the withdrawal are being notified through text messages on their registered lines, their profiles and emails.
Some of the withdrawn results were, according to Fabian, linked to the recent examination fraud discovered by the security agencies and had led to the arrest of several syndicates.
“During the 2025 examinations, further high level malpractices were uncovered, which led to the withdrawal of some results and the arrest of several culprits across the country some of whom we understand have made useful confessions.
“These unwholesome practices include: Collusion of certain CBT centre/school proprietors (with the connivance of accredited centres) to hack the networks of targeted CBT centres, thereby gaining control of candidates’ computers and remotely submitting their responses to the relevant local server of the centre as recently discovered by the security agencies to whom we are profoundly grateful.
“It is important to note that each of the 882 centres utilised by the Board operates on a separate local server, and some of which had their local area network and servers compromised. The central server of JAMB remains secure and impervious to such breaches.
“AI-enabled photo blending of candidates with impersonators, many of whom are current undergraduate students.
“Registration with combined fingers, which involves the combination of fingerprints from multiple persons for a single candidate’s registration.
“Extension of Local Area Networks (LAN) from centres to remote “strong rooms.”
“Pairing of Candidates with professional mercenaries (after wilful disruption of sitting arrangements) who had registered for the UTME for the purpose of access to the examination hall.
“Unfortunately, many undergraduates of tertiary institutions are found to be involved in this nefarious practice.
“Over three thousand candidates nationwide have been identified as either accomplices or beneficiaries of this extraordinary examination fraud.
“As investigation progresses, all candidates implicated in these unwholesome activities will have their results withdrawn as soon as incontrovertible proofs are established, even if the results have been released.” JAMB’s spokesperson wrote.
The examination board also dismissed claims that charges for shortcode of 55019/66019 (text messages) generate revenue to the board.
“It should be emphasised that the charges for shortcode of 55019/66019 (text messages) does not generate revenue to JAMB as being ignorantly peddled.
“The shortcode approach is to protect the critical data of the candidates and to curtail their cybercafé-extortion during their desperate check for results.
“JAMB has no reason to make money from such a service rather, it subsidises the shortcode services and text messages to candidates.” The statement read.