Many underaged candidates for the Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (UTME) may be unjustly treated following Nigeria’s exam body’s admission of error in the just concluded UTME.

Ish’aq Oloyede, registrar and chief executive officer, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), had earlier in the year said the body would go tough on underage applicants.

“We will impose some other penalties on them. It would have been better for them to wait for their time because they are going to waste their money,” he stated.

However, JAMB has admitted system error in the just concluded UTME and apologised to Nigerians, but it is still withholding the results of about 39,780 underaged candidates results for not scoring at least 80 percent or 320 in the UTME.

Oloyede on Wednesday admitted that technical errors had affected some candidates’ scores. While explaining 2025 UTME result glitches, JAMB registrar said, “Man proposes, God disposes.”

Out of the 40,247 underage candidates who sat for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), only 467 — which is 1.16 percent —scored high enough to be classified under the exceptional ability category,said the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

JAMB has already started rescheduling of UTME for affected 379,997 South East and Lagos candidates.

JAMB had introduced an underage admission policy where it, among others, set strict requirements for candidates who turn 16 by August 31, 2025. These underage admission requirements include: indemnity form signed by candidates before registration with a clause of likely ban from; UTME and O’Level Scores: Candidates must score at least 80 percent (320) in UTME and 80 percent in O’Level exams.

For the exceptional candidates’ exam, candidates must take an additional exam and score at least 80 percent before their admission can be considered.

The examination body had disclosed that although the underage candidates were permitted to showcase their academic prowess, “their performance in the subsequent three stages is still pending,” indicating that the evaluation process for these prodigious candidates is far from over.

Following the mass failure caused by JAMB technical glitches, the vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics, provosts of colleges of education, principals of schools, and examiners met with JAMB chiefs on the results discrepancies to review UTME results. However, the key question is whether underage candidates will be scapegoats for the exam body’s many errors.