By Ichie Fred Chukwuelobe
At this point, it is not out of place to conclude that the Southeast region has been maliciously and systematically targeted, resulting in widespread failure in the JAMB examination. This is crystal clear.
For the record, after the new government came in JAMB management went completely tribal, in 2024, they brazenly claimed that the Southeast was the headquarters of exam malpractice without providing any evidence or data to support this outrageous assertion. Remind me of what is said to be the reason for giving a dog a bad name: Is it not to kill it?
OK, in what appeared to be a well-mapped-out plan, JAMB withheld the list of students who performed exceptionally well in the 2024 UTME exams for the first time in over a decade. When observers expressed concern, the JAMB released the list, but for the first time, the Southeast region, which had historically topped the charts, was omitted entirely.
What was the intention behind this? JAMB seemed intent on proving that the Southeast was indeed the hub of examination malpractice and that the new management had implemented measures to address this so-called menace, right?
One can deceive some people for a time, but one cannot always deceive everyone. Technocrats, experts, and keen observers took an interest in what was happening. Instead of making noise, they got to work, collating and analysing educational and examination data.
Come 2025, in a bizarre and unprecedented turn of events, students from the Southeast recorded the highest mass failure in JAMB’s history. Parents raised alarms, and students were in despair. Tragically, a student from one of the affected units reportedly took her life out of frustration and heartbreak over the failure she received despite her belief that she had performed excellently in her exams. This did not prompt JAMB, the examination body, to conduct an internal review to ascertain what had gone wrong. Instead, they dismissed parental concerns and boasted about how they had rid a section of the country of exam malpractice. Was this not part of a well-choreographed malicious script?
Had they succeeded, what the resultant effect would’ve been that a large chunk of youths from a particular part of the country who were eminently qualified, willing, able and ready to get admitted into tertiary institutions across the country would’ve been denied the opportunity to pursue their life goals and careers because JAMB is the only legitimate body sanctioned with the responsibility of validating the students’ qualifications before enrolling into the university.
It took immense effort for a group known as EDUCARE, which had been monitoring the troubling developments since 2024, to sue JAMB and invoke the Freedom of Information Bill, forcing them to allow an independent review of the recent exam processes. True to suspicions, the review revealed that the process was flawed—dubious, in fact!
Students from the Southeast had their results manipulated by a certain cluster operating in Lagos. This cluster specifically affected the five states of the Southeast region, the only region subjected to such treatment among the country’s six regions.
Bizarre, isn’t it?
When the JAMB results were released and the mass failure sparked an uproar, the Minister of Education hurried to the media, boldly announcing that the failures resulted from efforts to curb exam malpractice—remember that agenda?
Now, JAMB has admitted to mishandling students’ results, particularly those from one region. The JAMB Oga has wept publicly, cancelled the fake results they released, and rescheduled the exam resit for the affected students. He declared that “man proposes, and God disposes.”
I wholeheartedly agree with him. God has indeed disposed of the systematic evil and malicious intentions in this matter.
