The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has rejected suggestions that administrative failures experienced in the 2025 Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Board were due to incompetence or ethnic bias, PUNCH ONLINE reports.

JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, stated this in Abuja on Wednesday while speaking to the press during a meeting with key stakeholders to address challenges encountered during the 2025 UTME exercise.

He also stated that there is no evidence of ethnic sabotage in the error that characterised the examination, dismissing calls for his resignation from critics who purported an ethnic conspiracy in the exercise.

He said, “I’m not interested in the ethnic identity of those who committed the mistake. As far as I’m concerned and to the best of my knowledge, there was no sabotage. There was no glitch. What happened was a human error committed by certain individuals.

"I say it for the fourth time that no conspiracy theory is relevant to this case. It does not matter to me whether they are Igbo or not. What matters is that they are diligent workers for the service providers. They committed a mistake, and we rectified it. I’ve accepted the mistake on behalf of everybody.”

He further urged stakeholders to stop ethnic profiling of education and criticised those who exploit difficulties to promote ethnic or conspiracy-driven narratives.

Recall that Oloyede had, on May 14, revealed that the results of 379,997 candidates across 157 centres in its Lagos and South East zones were affected.

He cited faulty server updates that led to the failure to upload candidate responses during the first three days of the exam.

On May 15, the House of Representatives resolved to probe the examination body over the technical error, while on April 19, the South East caucus in the House of Representatives demanded the resignation of the JAMB registrar.

The lawmakers also called for the cancellation of the 2025 UTME for a fresh examination to be conducted.

While some stakeholders alleged an ethnic conspiracy, the lawmakers cited that the south-east states were most affected by the error.