Alex Onyia has fulfilled his promise to publish a comprehensive technical review of the 2025 UTME, revealing how systemic lapses within JAMB’s infrastructure resulted in the mass failure that sparked nationwide outrage. “I promised I will share a detailed technical report of what happened after our review with the JAMB core system. Carefully read it please…” Onyia posted on X, sharing the report compiled by the Educare Tech Team.
The session, which took place on Tuesday, 14th May 2025 at JAMB headquarters in Abuja, was convened to examine the root cause of the poor candidate performance following the release of the UTME results the previous Friday. The meeting was presided over by the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, and attended by “heads of key directorates within JAMB, Lead Systems Analysts, delegates from the CBT Centre Regulatory Committee, representatives from the Educare Technical Team, and lead engineers from the consortium of software vendors.”
The team conducted a thorough audit of JAMB’s software and hardware infrastructure. “Discussions commenced with a comprehensive analysis of the existing system architecture,” the report stated. Focus was placed on how examination content was delivered—whether via server streaming or local caching. Attention was also given to the question and answer randomization systems to evaluate consistency in shuffling protocols and ensure candidates received fair and uniform treatment.
The technical team also examined how answers were scored, asking key questions such as: “Were candidate responses stored, retrievable, and auditable?” The assessment included a review of JAMB’s quality assurance mechanisms, testing procedures, system logs, and any emergency software patches that may have been applied during the exam window. These checks were crucial in identifying whether technical or manual interference skewed results.
One critical revelation from the meeting was the identification of three major systemic changes introduced in the 2025 UTME. “The first was a shift from the traditional count-based analysis to a more robust source-based analysis of results,” the report revealed. Unlike previous years, where session validity was based on how many candidates attempted most questions, the new model emphasized the logic behind candidate responses. The second was “full-scale shuffling of both questions and answer options,” and the third involved “systemic improvements aimed at optimizing performance and reducing lag.”
These improvements were well-intentioned, but a deployment error undermined their success. “The system patch necessary to support both shuffling and source-based validation had been fully deployed on the server cluster supporting the KAD (Kaduna) zone, but it was not applied to the LAG (Lagos) cluster,” the report explained. This failure in Lagos and South-East centres continued undetected until the 17th session of the examination.
The implication of this omission was devastating. “Approximately 92 centres in the South-East and 65 centres in Lagos—totalling 157 centres—operated using outdated server logic.” This resulted in system mismatches that affected scoring accuracy for an estimated 379,997 candidates. These candidates experienced marked performance deficits not due to academic deficiencies but due to a technical misalignment in the validation logic of their responses.
To further validate the findings, JAMB and the Educare Technical Team analyzed over 18,000 candidate responses collected independently. After processing, “more than 14,000 originated from the regions serviced by the unpatched LAG servers,” aligning precisely with JAMB’s internal audit results. This correlation confirmed beyond doubt that the issue was technical in nature and geographically specific.
Following the discovery, Professor Oloyede immediately addressed the public in a press conference later that day. He publicly accepted responsibility for the oversight, stating, “We regret the inconvenience this has caused and deeply apologize to affected candidates and their families.” As part of the remediation, JAMB offered a free retake for all affected candidates.
Oloyede also announced a critical collaboration with WAEC to prevent scheduling conflicts with SSCE exams, ensuring that affected candidates would not be academically penalized twice. “JAMB had reached an agreement with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to ensure seamless coordination of timetables,” the report stated.
Affected candidates were instructed to reprint their examination slips by Friday, 17th May 2025, to obtain their new schedules. JAMB simultaneously released a public memo titled “MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES,” which included a reflective section tagged “Appeal, Appreciation, and Apology.” This unusual blend of spiritual tone and institutional accountability sparked both sympathy and criticism on social media.
The report concluded with a commitment to systemic reforms: “Going forward, stronger deployment validation protocols and real-time monitoring mechanisms will be implemented to prevent such oversights.” Notably, the Educare Team emphasized that “this incident was neither a system failure nor administrative manipulation, but an outright human error.”
In summary, the 2025 UTME crisis, initially blamed on social media distractions and student unseriousness, has now been exposed as a consequence of internal technical mismanagement. The transparency of this report, submitted by Engr. James Nnanyelugo of the Educare Tech Team, represents a crucial step toward rebuilding trust in Nigeria’s most important tertiary entrance exam.
