No fewer than 21,000 candidates failed to show up for the rescheduled 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The resit, conducted for candidates who were affected by technical disruptions at select centres during the main examination, recorded a significant number of absentees.
This was disclosed in a statement released on Sunday and signed by JAMB’s Public Communication Advisor, Dr. Fabian Benjamin.
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According to the statement, 21,082 of the 336,845 candidates scheduled for the resit were absent.
Despite the turnout shortfall, JAMB noted that the performance trends among candidates who took the resit remained within expected historical ranges, citing success rates from 11% in 2013 to 34% in 2016.
JAMB said claims that some candidates from the cancelled sessions scored highly and may wish to retain their results are entirely unfounded.
It noted that in reality, only a handful of candidates scored as high as 217, while 99% scored below 200—demonstrating that there were no top performers in the cancelled sessions across the six affected states.
However, the release of the results has been overshadowed by fresh revelations of widespread malpractice involving candidates, school proprietors, and Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres.
The Board’s Chief External Examiners (CEEs), led by Prof. Olufemi Peters, Vice-Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), reviewed the resit exercise and brought in psychometrics expert Prof. Boniface Nworgu to validate the results before they were released.
Several critical resolutions were made during a nationwide meeting of CEEs, including the conditional release of results for underaged candidates, those involved in online “WhatsApp runs,” and some of those who missed the resit for valid reasons.
JAMB explained that underage candidates—many of whom had earlier acknowledged in writing that only those who meet academic standards would be considered for special admission—had their results released for record purposes only, and they remain ineligible for admission.
Similarly, candidates found to have engaged in academic misconduct using illicit WhatsApp groups and solicitation platforms were granted a one-time waiver.
The Board noted that it should not be misinterpreted as condoning wrongdoing, urging candidates to avoid anti-social and fraudulent networks.
A final opportunity has also been extended to absentee candidates, particularly those who missed both the main UTME and the resit, via the annual mop-up examination.
Meanwhile, several CBT centres have been blacklisted for serious examination infractions, including biometric data manipulation and impersonation facilitation.
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JAMB said the proprietors of these centres will be prosecuted, and all individuals directly involved in the fraudulent activities are being tracked.