No fewer than 40 persons have been arrested and are facing prosecution for impersonating candidates during the ongoing 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has disclosed.
This is as many parents and guardians are lamenting that the 6.30 am resumption time for the exam was too early for candidates, adding that many may have to travel several kilometres to their examination centres.
The 2025 UTME, which commenced on Thursday, April 24, will run until Monday, May 5.
According to JAMB, over 2,030,627 candidates are sitting for this year\u2019s examination across accredited Computer-Based Test centres nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mother of a candidate who claimed to live in Awoyaya in the Lekki area of Lagos but whose 14-year-old son was posted to a centre in Ikorodu stated that the young man may miss the examination because of the time.
\u201cThe examination slip states that candidates are expected at the centre by 6.30am. So, that means my son must be on the road by 4 am. I don\u2019t drive. We don\u2019t have a car. He would have to take a bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if I decide to go with him, how are we supposed to get a bus at that time, and how are we supposed to get to Ikorodu before 6.30am?
\u201cThis is wickedness. JAMB should look into this and move the exam forward. 6.30am for an examination is too early.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A guardian, Olaoluwa Yinka, lamenting on X, wrote, \u201cMy younger sister has just travelled today for her UTME tomorrow morning. From Abeokuta, she was sent to Ijebu Igbo by 6.30am. This is very absurd.
\u201cWhen I wrote JAMB, I did so around 9 am and the heavens did not fall. This CBT is the problem. Students get to the centre, and sometimes the systems don\u2019t work as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another X user, Lucas Oluwadare (@lucasoluwadare1), wrote, \u201cMy younger sister is scheduled to sit the exams tomorrow by 6.30am, too. She has to come sleep over at my apartment since it\u2019s closer, so she will meet up as early as possible tomorrow morning. The anyhowness of this country is top notch.\u201d
Social media activist, Rinu Oduala, tweeted, \u201cAgain, why are you scheduling exams for 6.30am, @JAMBHQ? And expect teenagers to find their ways 50km plus away from home? How can educated people make nonsensical policies for citizens and kids in this country? Does it make any sense?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mother, Nnem Chacha-Gold, who spoke to this reporter on Saturday, said her only daughter had to leave home by 4.30am to get to the venue of her exam by 6.30am.
\u201cI had to follow my daughter to her centre in Ikorodu from Ejigbo. When I got there, they said we (parents) were not welcome at the centre. I even learnt that candidates slept outside their centres to meet up. I can\u2019t imagine my own child sleeping on the street overnight just to meet up. Goodness!\u201d
Meanwhile, a young female candidate, said to be 16 years old, Esther Oladele, was said to have missed her way to her centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking on the issue of impersonation, Benjamin lamented the persistent cases of malpractice despite the board\u2019s efforts to sanitise the examination process.
He noted that although other countries have successfully conducted centralised examinations remotely, Nigeria\u2019s context made such innovation impracticable for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf Nigerians want comfort, let us behave very well. If we are transparent, we can do these CBT exams at home and submit them online. We will just send questions to them and they will answer and send them back to us. Then, we will grade and send them back the results,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cBut, you know what will happen if we try to do that. Several countries are doing their central examinations from home. But, can we do that in Nigeria?\u201d
UTME starts at 8am, not 6am \u2013 JAMB<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Benjamin also clarified that the ongoing 2025 UTME commences at 8am daily, not at 6 am or 6.30am as widely misunderstood.
Speaking in an interview on Saturday, Benjamin explained that while candidates are expected to arrive at their designated CBT centres by 6.30am for necessary pre-examination formalities, the examination proper does not start until 8am.
\u201cOur exams (UTME) start at 8am. There is no exam by 6am or 6.30am,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cIf you are flying today and your exam is by 8am, you are advised to be at the airport an hour or so before that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Addressing concerns about candidates having to leave home very early to meet the check-in time, Benjamin maintained that daybreak across Nigeria typically occurs around 6am, making it safe enough for candidates to set out early.
\u201cIn any case, 6.30am anywhere in Nigeria is daybreak. I came out today at 6am, and it was as bright as anything. But I need to stress that the examination is not at 6am. The first session of our exams starts at 8 am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut candidates are expected to be at the centre from 6.30am. Some of them still come by 7am or 7.30am. But if you come to that centre 30 minutes late, you won\u2019t sit the examination because they must have done some preliminaries that you won\u2019t be able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No fewer than 40 persons have been arrested and are facing prosecution for impersonating candidates during the ongoing 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has disclosed. This is as many parents and guardians are lamenting that the 6.30 am resumption time for the exam was too early for candidates, adding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-naija-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Official_JAMB_logo-4.png?fit=325%2C306&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13603,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions\/13603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}