The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Special Committee on Examination Infractions (SCEIi) has vowed to shut down computer-based test (CBT) centres implicated in over 4,000 cases of examination fraud and ensure their owners face jail.
Committee chairman Jake Epelle, speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, described the discoveries as “mind-blowing”. He said:
“A lot of CBT centres are going to be shut down, their equipment seized, and the owners jailed. What we saw was shocking — manipulations, illegal transactions, and young people with advanced technology at their disposal.”
Epelle warned that the findings showed Nigeria’s education sector was in deep crisis. He insisted JAMB’s systems were not compromised but highlighted negligence by some staff and the misuse of artificial intelligence by fraudsters.
The committee uncovered 4,251 cases of “finger blending”, 192 cases of AI-assisted impersonation, 1,878 false disability claims, forged credentials, multiple National Identification Number (NIN) registrations, and collusion between candidates and syndicates.
Epelle further revealed that 80 per cent of infractions were linked to desperate parents. “These parents demand marks their children do not deserve. JAMB must begin to name and shame them,” he said. Schools and tutorial centres were also implicated.
The panel recommended deploying AI-powered biometric anomaly tools, real-time monitoring, and a centralised security operations centre to safeguard future examinations.
JAMB Registrar Ishaq Oloyede, who received the report in Abuja, has already apologised for glitches that marred the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), forcing nearly 380,000 candidates to retake the test.
A breakdown of the 2025 UTME results showed that of the 1.95 million candidates who sat the exam, 78.5 per cent scored below 200. Only 12,414 candidates (0.63 per cent) scored 300 and above, while over 983,000 (50.29 per cent) fell within the 160–199 range.