You need to see how I dashed to the airport and flew back into the country in a frenzy. Apart from that, I had other things I planned to do this Saturday. All plans had to be either cancelled or adjusted because of an unplanned JAMB resit. Enveloped in that confusion, I feel compelled to write this note as a South Easterner, as a mother and as a JAMB-affected person.
I have seen hands clapping for JAMB Registrar, Mr. Oloyede, for acknowledging the technological flaws in JAMB’s test scoring systems and scheduling a resit for affected students… I abstained my hands from clapping when I realised that it was EDUCARE’s accountability campaigns that forced him into repentance. If not for Alex Onyia’s EDUCARE, what we don’t know is how long this has been happening, and how many people have suffered harm, without any detection nor consequence.
I once argued with my good friend, Funke, about the marginalisation of the South-East (SE) which she claimed either doesn’t exist or is grossly exaggerated. When NELFUND student loans were disbursed, SE students were omitted and some stories were told to explain away the omission. When FG borrowed $22.7 billion for infrastructure projects, SE was omitted and some stories told to explain away the omission. When FG constituted the Presidential Committee on 2025 Census, SE was omitted, and some stories were told to explain away the omission. Igbos are already used to political and economic omissions and exclusion and that’s totally OK. We’re used to it already!
It is deeply concerning that JAMB’s tech glitches, again, predominantly affected students from the SE region and Lagos. People from the SE are expected to accept it as a mere glitch and just move on. Just like that!!!!! If you look further into details of the students affected in Lagos, they also come from the SE. This morning, I deliberately checked surnames of most of the JAMB-resit students, nearly all of them come from the SE. No matter what you make of these “governmental” omissions, exclusions and tech-imposed afflictions on South-Easterners, they don’t look like coincidences to me. It’s more systematic and structural than coincidental.
Finally, JAMB withheld results of over 40,000 students on the ground that they’re “underaged”. JAMB also announced in March 2025 that underaged students would only be enrolled into universities if they scored at least 280. In May, JAMB shifted the goal post to 320 and released the results of of only 467 students that crossed the mark. Why would JAMB allow underaged students to write JAMB in the first place only to withhold their results? Why collect money from underaged students and then blame them for being underaged? Why not restrain them from the entrypoint? Why shift the goal post in the middle of the game? Is JAMB merely a revenue mobilisation stream or an educational lever for Nigerian students?
I have no answers to these questions. But the recent revelations are quite enlightening. At least, the wounded, the targeted and the excluded will now gird up their loins and start shopping for alternatives that work for them. A stitch in time saves nine.
