From Felix Ikem, Nsukka
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria, Nsukka, has threatened to sue the Joint Matriculation Board (JAMB) over the mass failure recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam (UTME) conducted by the board.
Briefing newsmen in Nsukka on Wednesday, Comrade Oyibo Eze, the Chairman of ASUU-UNN, alleged that the mass failure, which mostly affected candidates from the South-East, was a deliberate attempt by JAMB to stop children from the zone from gaining admission into higher institutions.
“My office has been inundated with protest calls and visits by parents and the general public on this deliberate mass failure in the 2025 JAMB examination.
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“ASUU will challenge this result in the High Court if JAMB fails to review the result and give candidates their merited scores.
“JAMB knows that children from the South-East must score higher before they can get admission, whereas their counterparts in some parts of the country will use a 120 JAMB score to get admission to read medicine in universities in their area.
“In the JAMB recently released results, out of 1,955,069 candidates who sat for the 2025 exam, over 1.5 million candidates scored less than 200, and the majority of them are from South East and Lagos Stat,e where many Igbos reside,” he said.
He called on governors from the Southeast to rise and challenge this injustice targeted towards preventing children from the zone from gaining admission into higher institutions in the country.
“The governors in the zone should not sit and watch JAMB toy with the academic future of our children.
“I am not against the board punishing those found guilty of exam malpractice, JAMB should not, because of these few candidates, fail the whole candidates in an exam centre,” he said.
The ASUU boss said that it’s unbelievable and unacceptable that in the whole University Secondary School, Nsukka no candidate that sat for the exam scored up to 200 in the 2025 UTME.
“This school has superlative students who have excelled in academics both inside and outside the school. How come all of them scored less than 200 on that exam?
“Even if JAMB discovered one or two candidates for exam malpractice, is that enough reason to fail all others who have prepared very hard for that exam?” he asked
Oyibo advised JAMB to act fast to do the needful by reviewing the result, adding that the mass failures had become a national issue, which might attract national protest if nothing urgent was done.