Alex Onyia, founder of Educare and a widely respected education technology expert, has provided detailed insight into the events that led to the recent re-sit of the 2025 UTME for certain affected candidates. Speaking on Arise News’ The Morning Show, Onyia recounted his direct involvement in the review process and his visit to the JAMB national headquarters, where he initially advocated for a remark of the exams before the examination body opted for a re-sit instead.
“Let’s not use the word glitch,” Onyia said in the televised interview. “I think this is actually a clear human error. So, I’m actually from Jamf System. Unfortunately, this happened, and we didn’t know.” His statement came as public concern grew over numerous irregularities in the 2025 JAMB results.
Onyia said his suspicion was triggered by abnormal score patterns that didn’t align with students’ academic histories. “What I noticed was that the failure rate was too much. Someone who scored 311 last year suddenly got 64 this year. Even national competition winners were scoring 40. That didn’t add up,” he stated.
Worried about the psychological toll on students, Onyia used his Educare platform to gather testimonies. “When I posted about it, over 18,000 people responded. I also got messages from more than 100 students threatening to take their own lives. That’s when I knew it was more than an error—it was a crisis,” he said.
Taking further action, Onyia activated the Freedom of Information Act and wrote formal letters to JAMB, the House of Representatives, and affected candidates. “To their credit, JAMB responded the next day. They invited us to their office to conduct a system audit and find out what really went wrong,” he disclosed.
During the visit, Onyia and his team were shown the system architecture behind the UTME scoring. “We discovered that JAMB operates two main clusters—the PATH and LAC clusters. Even within LAC, there are zones like Lagos, Warri, and others. What puzzled us was how only certain zones were affected,” he noted.
Following the technical audit, Onyia recommended a full remark of the scripts from the affected zones. “I said the best solution was to remark the exams since they had all the data. That way, we could quickly restore the actual performance records of these students,” he recounted.
However, JAMB disagreed. According to Onyia, the board insisted on organizing a re-sit for the affected candidates rather than conducting a remark. “They said the re-sit was the best approach. Even though I had my reservations, I respected their decision. The important thing was that students would get another chance,” he said.
The re-sit was conducted shortly afterward, and Onyia confirmed that all the affected candidates have already taken the new exam. “Yes, the re-sit has been done. The students wrote the new test, and we’re all now awaiting the results, which JAMB has assured will be out very soon,” he told Arise TV.
In preparation for the upcoming results, Onyia added, “We’ve been invited again to participate in the review. If we notice anything unusual, we will definitely share it. The new JAMB results will be published on Wednesday, and students can start checking their scores from Thursday morning.”
He also commended JAMB for being responsive under pressure. “JAMB has shown a level of transparency that I deeply respect. They opened their doors and allowed us to see everything. That kind of openness is rare,” Onyia said.
Still, he urged for deeper introspection. “While the re-sit was a practical solution, I hope this experience pushes everyone to improve our exam integrity systems. The future of thousands of students depends on getting it right the first time,” he concluded.
