He said this while speaking to journalists during a stakeholders’ meeting to address the challenges faced in the conduct of the 2025 UTME in Abuja.
The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, Ishaq Oloyede, has rejected allegations of bias or ethnic favouritism in the handling of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results.
He said this while speaking to journalists during a stakeholders’ meeting to address the challenges faced in the conduct of the 2025 UTME in Abuja.
He stated, “So I want to say this clearly, particularly because I accepted responsibility, not because I do not know how to do the work.
“People that work with me have testified to the fact that I do not care where you come from. Until this incident happened, I didn’t know that I was surrounded by many issues, because I didn’t look at them as issues—I looked at them as my friends.
“But when things started happening and people are saying, ‘Which one is you?’—which is unfortunate, because you need not look at where you come from.
“But I never knew, because I knew him as a human being who was performing his services. So please, let us not descend to the level of those people who are out there.
“I say it for the fourth time that no conspiracy theory is relevant to this case. There is nothing to say north, south, or that you buy more outside.
“Something happened—like people who have been doing something well for years—and something just went wrong. I did not throw them under the bus. No.”
His comments come amid calls for his resignation by the South East Caucus of the House of Representatives.
Some activists and individuals of Igbo descent from the southeastern region have also accused authorities of deliberate bias against their area.
SaharaReporters reported that the East Caucus in the House of Representatives called for Oloyede’s resignation over what it described as a “catastrophic institutional failure” in the conduct of the 2025 UTME.
This position was conveyed in a statement signed by Hon. Igariwey Enwo.
The group strongly criticised JAMB for the technical glitches that affected nearly 380,000 candidates.
“While we acknowledge Professor Oloyede’s openness in admitting JAMB’s failings, we must state unequivocally that the remedial steps taken so far fall drastically short of our constituents’ expectations,” the statement said.
The statement went on to criticise the rushed rescheduling of the examination, saying, “JAMB’s knee-jerk, fire-brigade approach has been anything but adequate. Students in the South East—many of whom are currently writing their WAEC exams—were given less than 48 hours’ notice to appear for the rescheduled UTME. Reports indicate this was grossly inadequate, leading to a low turnout.
“In some cases, the rescheduled UTME clashed directly with ongoing WAEC papers, compounding distress for students and families.”
The caucus emphasised that JAMB, a government agency, has a constitutional responsibility to ensure fairness in educational opportunities.
This statement echoes a similar position earlier adopted by the South East Caucus of the Nigerian Senate.
In a separate statement issued Saturday in Abuja, the South East Senators, under the aegis of the South East Senate Caucus, blamed the incident on “hateful politics” and “narrow parochial considerations.”
The statement, signed by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (APGA, Abia South), alleged a possible conspiracy to undermine the future of children in the region.
“It would be disheartening—and we hope not to contemplate such a conspiracy theory—that there is a narrow agenda being pursued to deliberately shortchange and harm the future of our children,” the statement said.
“The so-called glitch, as curious and suspicious as it was, is enough to erode confidence and dangerously lower national pride among the future generation.”
The Senate Caucus urged national education bodies to avoid political interference in educational policy.
SaharaReporters previously reported that JAMB received a formal request from a law firm, John Nwobodo & Associates, demanding the release of the 2025 UTME questions and answers for over 1.5 million candidates who scored below 200.
This followed concerns over the examination’s unprecedented failure rate, which saw more than 70% of candidates scoring below the 200 pass mark.
The law firm, which said it was representing 1,534,654 candidates, raised the alarm about potential discrepancies in the results, suggesting a possible malfunction in JAMB’s software.
SAHARA REPORTERS
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