UTME Mop-Up: Over 85,000 Candidates Fail to Show Up Amid Exam Malpractice Crackdown

More than 85,000 out of the 98,232 candidates slated for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) nationwide UTME mop-up examination on Saturday failed to appear, raising serious questions about their intent and eligibility.

According to The Guardian, only about 12,000 candidates—roughly 12% of those scheduled—showed up for the test. The low turnout has triggered concerns regarding the integrity of the examination process and the seriousness of the applicants.

JAMB has attributed the poor attendance to ongoing efforts to clamp down on impersonation and exam malpractice. Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who monitored proceedings at the Technology CBT Centre in NAF Valley Estate, Abuja, described the turnout as “abysmally low.”

He explained that mop-up exams are usually reserved for a few thousand candidates who genuinely missed the main UTME due to illness or verified technical difficulties. “Every year we conduct mop-ups for about 4,000 to 5,000 candidates. These are individuals with legitimate reasons,” he said.

However, this year’s unusually large number of candidates was a result of alleged widespread absences during the main UTME. Oloyede said JAMB decided to offer everyone a second chance, while also using the opportunity to expose cheating syndicates based on intelligence from security agencies like the DSS and the police.

“We widened the door to catch impersonators. And what we’re seeing across the country is far below expectation,” he stated, noting that some centres expecting 250 candidates saw fewer than 20.

He pointed to a growing trend where fraud rings—often operated by so-called tutorial centres and private school proprietors—are increasingly orchestrating sophisticated cheating schemes.

One such tactic, Oloyede revealed, involves falsely claiming to be albino to exploit vulnerabilities in facial recognition systems. “We normally don’t have more than 100 albinos register each year. But this year, we had 1,787 people declare themselves albino—450 from a single centre,” he said.

He described how arrested suspects confessed to using picture blending technology to impersonate candidates. “They combine the photos of two people so that facial recognition systems get confused.”

The Registrar added that all impersonators would be traced and held accountable. “They used real names, NINs, and phone numbers. Many are already in custody,” he said, adding that parents funding such schemes would also face investigation and prosecution.

Regarding the mop-up exam results, Oloyede said JAMB may delay releasing them until Monday, June 30, to allow for extra scrutiny and elimination of fraudulent candidates.

In a related development, the Registrar disclosed that 14 Direct Entry (DE) applicants were caught using forged certificates. He lamented the role of some institutions in facilitating this fraud, revealing cases where students received certificates dated before they even left secondary school.

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“We discovered students who completed secondary school in 2021 presenting NCE admission records from 2020—clearly forged. Institutions aiding this will be held accountable,” he warned.

He also criticized the practice of students attempting to remedy academic deficiencies after graduation. “You can’t become an engineer and then seek to get a credit in Mathematics after the fact,” he said.

Oloyede concluded by affirming JAMB’s commitment to purging the system of malpractice with the support of the Ministry of Education and relevant security agencies.