The 2025 Joint Admission and Matriculation Examination (UTME) results caused a lot of shock in Nigeria. More than 80% of candidates failed the exam, and JAMB said this was because of a “technical glitch.” But activist lawyer Maduabuchi Idam says the National Assembly is not capable of investigating this issue well.

Idam even joked that the current lawmakers in the National Assembly are themselves a result of a “technical glitch.” This means he doubts their ability to handle technical problems properly.

JAMB’s Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, admitted that there were mistakes during the exam that affected students’ performance. According to JAMB, out of 1.9 million students who wrote the exam, over 1.5 million scored below 200 out of 400. This low performance raised many concerns about the exam’s reliability.

The House of Representatives reacted quickly by deciding to investigate the problem. This decision was made during a plenary session after Honorable Adewale Adebayo raised the issue as urgent and important.

Despite this, Idam criticized the blame on the “technical glitch.” He feels this excuse is often used in Nigeria to cover up incompetence or mistakes in public work.

He pointed out that in a country where impunity is common, people tend to stay silent even when there are serious problems like this exam failure.

Idam said Nigerians should accept Professor Oloyede’s explanation for the exam failure, just as they accepted the results of the 2023 general elections announced by INEC.

If Nigerians don’t accept this explanation, he suggested that the National Assembly should first investigate the 2023 elections before looking into the JAMB exam problem.