Ezekwesili Slams JAMB, Education Ministry Over UTME Chaos: ‘Shameful Failure Of Leadership

Former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili has strongly criticised both the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the Federal Ministry of Education over the technical issues that disrupted the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

During a press briefing on Wednesday, JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede became emotional as he apologised publicly for the irregularities and confirmed that affected candidates would be allowed to retake the exam.

Reacting via a post on her (formerly Twitter) handle on Thursday, Ezekwesili questioned the authorities’ initial dismissal of concerns raised over the examination irregularities.

She wrote:
“Why didn’t the authorities respond with humility and promptly conduct an unbiased technical review when abnormal patterns in the results first emerged, instead of attacking concerned citizens?”

Ezekwesili condemned the Ministry of Education and JAMB for offering what she described as “anecdotal and biased explanations” regarding the unusually high scores in the five South-East states.

“Technical issues should be handled with professionalism,” she added, blaming a “toxic atmosphere fueled by incompetent and dishonest politicians and intellectuals who should know better.”

To emphasize her consistency on the matter, Ezekwesili shared screenshots of two previous tweets from 2018 and 2023. In the 2018 tweet, she criticised the then-Minister of Education under President Buhari for focusing on JAMB’s revenue instead of fixing deeper systemic problems.

“If I were President and my Education Minister focused on JAMB’s revenue rather than addressing the integrity of its exam system and infrastructure, I’d immediately reassign her to manage airport toll gates,” she wrote at the time.

She also referred to the 2023 case involving Anambra student Mmesoma Ejikeme, who was accused of altering her UTME results. Ezekwesili had then called for a forensic investigation to determine the truth, asserting that technical matters deserve independent scrutiny.