A member of the House of Representatives, Iduma Igariwey, has called for the cancellation of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), citing what he described as a “catastrophic institutional failure” that has compromised the fairness and integrity of the exam process.
Igariwey, who leads the South-East Caucus in the House of Representatives, voiced his concerns during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, aired on Tuesday.
The Next Edition reports that he criticised the recent admission of error by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) regarding the conduct of the 2025 UTME, arguing that this acknowledgement was not enough to justify continuing with the exams.
“The whole thing has lost its integrity. It has lost its fairness. People who took the time and prepared for exams were no longer in a position to take those exams.
“What we mainly did was to say these exams just must be done the proper way, the right way. So, that’s why we are saying that the exam has to be cancelled, so that the right thing is done in the first place,” Igariwey said.
The lawmaker responded to JAMB’s explanation that a “technical glitch” and “human error” were responsible for the issues. Igariwey argued that the decision to reschedule the exams within 48 hours was “unreasonable and poorly thought out.”
He said, “If you recall, you see that we were very restrained in taking a decision. The caucus reacted to what Professor Ishaq (Oloyode) told Nigerians on the 14th of May. He admitted to what we have described as a catastrophic institutional failure, where nearly 400,000 students who took exams in April were asked to come and re-sit those exams. That has never happened in the history of this country. And I’m sure it came as a shock to Nigerians.”
Igariwey further criticised the rushed nature of the rescheduling, noting that JAMB’s announcement came just 48 hours before the new examination date, which created confusion and logistical challenges.
“JAMB came out two days after—or that same day or the next day—to announce that students would have to go back to classrooms, and 48 hours after, to re-sit those same examinations. Now, those examinations were conducted on the 16th of May,” Igariwey stated.
He also noted that many candidates, particularly in the South-East, could not access their designated centres due to the abrupt changes.
“We all got reports from our various constituencies. A lot of students could not make it to the examination halls. So a lot of people could not sit for those resit exams. And that was our major concern,” he said.
The lawmaker expressed frustration over JAMB’s failure to address the root causes of the problem before conducting another set of exams.
“JAMB cannot just, after two days, set another set of exams. You haven’t even told Nigerians that you have corrected whatever led to the initial problem. People are calling for an investigation. People are calling for an examination of what happened. And then you have set those exams right immediately again,” Igariwey stated.
He continued, “Students are unable to have access. So either they will go, and they will hear it’s not going to be in this centre again; it’s going to be in the other centre. A whole lot of people didn’t take those exams.”
