The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) yesterday inaugurated a committee to probe the cases of technology driven malpractices involving 6,458 candidates detected during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

This is as the body after the 2025 Policy Meeting chaired by the Minister of Education asked public universities to complete their 2025 admissions by October 31, with the private universities rounding off theirs on November 30. Polytechnics, colleges of education, and innovation enterprise institutions were given a final deadline of December 31 to complete theirs.

Inaugurating the 23-man committee headed by Dr. Jake Epele in Abuja, Registrar Ishaq Oloyede expressed concerns over the rising sophistication in perpetrating exam fraud. According to the professor, the results of the candidates are under investigation. “This year we came across a number of strange things and we felt that it would be better if we expand our resources.

And we believe that God has endowed this nation with a lot of resources that we can tap from,” Oloyede said. He said malpractice has evolved beyond traditional schemes into “technologically sophisticated forms,” including multiple cases of biometric and identity fraud by some accredited CBT centres and candidates. Oloyede stressed the need for urgent action to protect the credibility of examinations.

“Examination malpractice is something that we must fight with every pinch of blood in our veins,” he said, warning that unchecked fraud could harm several sectors and tarnish Nigeria’s image.

The JAMB chief said while 141 cases of “normal” exam malpractice have been sent to JAMB’s disciplinary committee, the committee will handle “extraordinary infractions,” such as image blending, albinism falsification, finger pairing, and attempts to breach some CBT centres’ Local Area Network.

He listed the terms of reference of the committee as to include “investigate all the cases of image blending, finger blending, false claim of albinism and result falsification in the 2025 examination; identify the methods, patterns, tools, and technologies used to perpetrate this infraction”.

The JAMB said the admission deadlines are designed to stabilise the academic calendar and ensure equal access to admission opportunities. It directed institutions conducting post-UTME exams to complete the process on time to meet the 2025 admission deadlines.