THE ABDUCTION OF UTME CANDIDATES 

By Nick Dazang 

The 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UMTE), organized by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), took place across the country from Thursday, April 17th.
The exam, which was structured against four daily sessions, saw 2.2 million candidates participating across 966 accredited Computer Based Test(CBT) Centers.

Though the exam was a marked improvement on last year’s fiasco, there were a legion of challenges across board. The exam was framed by disruptions, network glitches, malfunctioning systems, abrupt system shutdowns, forced logouts, inconsistencies in time tracking and administrative delays, which in turn left many candidates stranded. Little wonder, there were complaints galore by candidates.

These challenges show crystal clearly that many of the CBT Centers may not have met JAMB’s benchmarks, namely: functional computer systems, stable internet connectivity, electricity and trained personnel. This is not to add that in a country with 774 Local Government Areas, 966 accredited CBT Centers are inadequate.

In our clime where access to the internet is a parody or reprisal of the inequality that obtains between the center and the periphery, with urban areas assuming the place of the center while our rural areas represent the deprived and impoverished periphery, it is inevitable that some of these CBT Centers will suffer from weakened network or internet access.

Besides, unless all the Centers were running on generators for the duration of the exercise, the exam itself stood in peril of not registering optimum success. Worse of all, the exam took place at a time when the electricity sector was, literally, in the Intensive Care Unit(ICU).

The glitches, shutdowns and administrative delays which shortchanged many of the candidates mean that they were not all given a level playing field. This has serious implications for evaluation and the integrity of the examination. Arising from these, one must wonder how JAMB intends to evaluate a candidate who complained on X that:”My exam was for 9:00A.M. but started around 12:00-12.30 P.M. During the exam, my screen showed 30 mins left, yet we were told only 6 mins remained, and I was logged out before finishing English”.

Or the instance of the Center at SkillPath International Academy, Old Karu, where “all candidates were repeatedly logged out due to network failure and couldn’t complete their examination. They were still asked to leave despite time not being up.”

Or indeed many others who complained of system failures and frequent shutdowns which frustrated their efforts in writing the exam.

But what stood out, like a sore thumb, was the unfortunate abduction of some of the candidates a day before the conduct of the examination.

On Wednesday, 16th April, gunmen abducted sixteen(16) young men who had boarded a commercial bus belonging to BENUE LINKS. The bus was traveling from Makurdi to Otukpo. It turned out that eight(8) of the abductees were traveling to Otukpo to write the UMTE.

The abduction, coming hot on the heels of the recent Boko Haram attacks on military bases and the abduction of not less than four hundred people at Ngoshe, Borno State, naturally went viral. It also caused outrage.

Instead of JAMB to handle this delicate situation with care and to show empathy for the abductees and their relatives, it elected to put a bizarre spin to it and to wax cynical.

When the incident occurred, the Chairman of the Otukpo Local Government Area, Maxwell Ogiri, dutifully acknowledged it. The Benue State Commissioner of Police, Ifeanyi Emenari, confirmed it. He went further to assure Nigerians that he was personally leading the team to rescue the abductees. Meanwhile, this was the condescending response of JAMB through its Head of Protocol and Public Affairs, Fabian Benjamin:”You know Nigerians love this kind of story. I have made calls and no one has been able to give me anything to that effect. So it is speculative.”

The abductees were, mercifully, rescued and presented to the public on Sunday, April 19th by Governor Hyacinth Alia and the Commissioner of Police, Ifeanyi Emenari. The Commissioner of Police asserted at the presentation:”Among the victims are eight students who were preparing to write UMTE while others are regular commuters.”

Two of the UMTE candidates, Gbenda Daniels and Ngukulan Iornav, explained to pressmen the ordeal they went through in the hands of their callous abductors.

Yet JAMB cavalierly dismissed the abduction of these candidates. In a statement through its spokesman, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said its investigation showed the abductees were participants in a police recruitment exercise who had traveled to Makurdi and were returning to Otukpo.

If it were so, should the Commissioner of Police not have known and acknowledged it?
Is JAMB insinuating that the Governor, the Police Commissioner, the Local Government Chairman and the at least two of the candidates who spoke to the media, were lying? What is JAMB’s position on the several other candidates who were posted from Makurdi to Otukpo, like the instance of candidate Innocent Oche who was posted to write his exam at Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo?

Not even Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda chief, could have put up this sordid performance.
With a self-righteous JAMB, which can haughtily disown its candidates, how sure are we that it will not proceed to declare, even in the face of unblushing evidence, that the many glitches that inundated the examination did not take place?

Rather than for JAMB’s response to elicit for it a positive image and the understanding of Nigerians, it has instead cast a slur on an image besmeared by last year’s woeful outing. With its dismissive attitude and abject lack of sensitivity and finesse, stakeholders are inclined to suspect that JAMB’s effusive apology in the aftermath of the 2025 UTME was a ruse. And that the tears its Registrar/Chief Executive, Professor Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, reportedly shed, were crocodile ones.