The Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership, Osita Chidoka, has commended the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for transparency as the board begins the review of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The review followed widespread protest of low scores by candidates claiming past records of better performance in both the UTME and other examinations.
Mr Chidoka, a former minister of aviation, is one of the stakeholders invited by JAMB to be part of the review process. His organisation, the Athena Centre, recently conducted a survey that revealed the financial secrecy in Nigerian universities and how that is affecting their abilities to get global grants.
Shortly after the survey was published, the Ministry of Education mandated the universities to publish their annual financial statements. The centre has now partnered the ministry to monitor compliance.
Other selected stakeholders participating in the UTME review process include Commissioners for Education, Vice Chancellors, the Parents Teachers Association, the Computer Professionals Association of Nigeria, and Chief External Examiners.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Chidoka expressed satisfaction with the review process so far and called on affected candidates to remain calm and await formal communication from JAMB.
He explained that himself and other stakeholders observed the physical re-marking of randomly selected scripts of candidates.
The former minister commended the examination board’s transparency, rigour, and accountability.
He said the country will grow when public institutions are accountable, citizens are active, and organisations remain vigilant.
“I am proud of the open and honest process they instituted to address the technical issues that affected results in Lagos and the South East. This is the hallmark of institutional integrity and responsibility,” he said.
“It showed a commitment to truth over convenience.”
Centre to review 10 years of results
Mr Chidoka also said the Athena Centre has also filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request through the Arthur Nwankwo Institute to review 10 years of past results for comparative analysis with the 2025 results.
He also appreciated Alex Onyia, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Educare, for his consistent advocacy in the education sector and for standing firmly on the side of students and fairness.
Mr Onyia had begun compiling the list of candidates who believe they performed better than the scores allocated to them during the UTME. He has compiled over 13,000 candidates and announced plans to sue the board to provide the scoring sheets of the candidates.
Concerns over low scores
PREMIUM TIMES had reported that candidates and other Nigerians took to social media to protest the low scores recorded by some candidates who had previous records of better performance.
This year, more than 78 per cent of candidates who sat the UTME scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum obtainable points. Each candidate takes four subjects, each graded by 100 points.
Using the hashtag #thisisnotmyresult, they expressed concerns and called for a review of the results.
However, JAMB registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, a professor, said the results are consistent with the trend over the years. Last year, 76 per cent of candidates who sat the UTME scored less than 200 points.
In 2022, 1.3 million candidates out of 1.7 million –or 78 per cent– who sat the 2022 UTME scored below 200, according to JAMB.
In 2021, only 803 candidates out of 1.3 million –or 0.06 per cent– who sat the 2021 UTME scored above 300, the registrar, Mr Oloyede, said at the time.
However, the examination board announced on Monday that it would invite stakeholders to review the complaints of low scores by the candidates and fast forward its annual system review which would conduct a comprehensive post-mortem of the examination process.