JAMB failed and the leaders disappointed us. This is a team I have praised many times here, even honouring the Registrar as the finest public servant in the nation multiple times. Yet, even in my praise, I have maintained that JAMB must not be seen as a revenue generating entity, to avoid the issue of driving margins over trust, integrity and standards.
When the news of the mass JAMB failure broke, many community members sent me the report. I wrote to most: “that result is impossible” and I REFUSED to join most to castigate young Nigerians for the mass failure. But what did I do? I joined some select Nigerians to understand more.
Good People, Lagos and Southeast have consistently outperformed in JAMB in the last 20 years. In other words, you would always see the state and the region breaking above average. So when Lagos and Southeast failed, JAMB’s statistician would have known that it was not typical. In one school within the University of Nigeria Nsukka, 100% of the students failed as none scored above 200. But historically, this school has produced some amazing JAMBITES. JAMB’s internal data ought to have flagged the abnormalities in the results!
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 17 (June 9 – Sept 6, 2025) today for early bird discounts. Do annual for access to Blucera.com.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register to become a better CEO or Director with Tekedia CEO & Director Program.
Fellow Citizens, JAMB has no excuse; it is a monumental failure. JAMB has distorted destinies for many young people. I have my own personal record. When I wrote mine, I put FUT Owerri as my 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices. Admission results were published and I enrolled in FUTO. But later, the admission letter came and it had UNN – Electrical Engineering.
What happened? No one could explain. I left Owerri and went to JAMB head office in Lagos, insisting that I was only for FUTO, not UNN, because I wanted to study Electrical & Electronics engineering with option in Electronics & Computer Engineering (three degrees in one) over UNN’s mono Electrical engineering. My HOD in FUTO had even encouraged me to move to UNN; I refused. At JAMB, they explained how UNN cornered my admission as it wanted me to come to Nsukka. I said, but you did not consult with me after you had already sent my name to FUTO to enroll.
A village boy was speaking and I told them to cancel the UNN admission for FUTO. They printed a new admission letter, and I made it back to FUTO – and handed it over to the registrar. They were stunned! I was lucky as JAMB listened. And I also want to commend the current leadership for how it has listened. I do hope these students will get help!
If you read my piece, you will understand my issue: data and statistics. JAMB should not have released the results if it did its work. If it works with data, it ought to have known that a UNN center would not have produced 100% failure when the center in previous years had produced great JAMBITES. Forget the tech mess, focus on the need to apply data and statistics.
The Real JAMB Failure
The biggest failure in JAMB is not that it did not update its software in Lagos State and states in Southeast Nigeria. The real issue is that JAMB published the results. Largely, if JAMB was applying statistics it was testing the students on, it ought to have noticed that the results were “impossible” since states in Southeast and Lagos state have typically outperformed in JAMB exams.
A center in Nsukka had close to 100% failure (none scored above 200), their analysis would have shown that it was impossible considering the proximity of this center to UNN secondary school. This is what makes this mess very scary as we have just picked a signal that JAMB has no memory, and is operating as a garbage in garbage out institution! If not, it would have sent staff to know why Imo, Abia, Anambra and Lagos states – usually the top JAMB scorers- underperformed.
And this comes to my incessant criticism of making JAMB a revenue generating agency which must generate money for the federal government. Most exam bodies are structured as public benefit organizations making it possible to invest in standards and deepen trust and integrity. But when Registrars are seen as rainmakers, those auxiliary services could be cut. I think that is what possibly happened. If not, there is no way JAMB statisticians would not have seen that it was impossible for the affected states to have performed as published.
---
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA (June 9 – Sept 6, 2025), and join Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe and our global faculty; click here.