Former presidential candidate Peter Obi has expressed serious concern over the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results released by the Joint Admissions...

Former presidential candidate Peter Obi has expressed serious concern over the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results released by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). Out of nearly 2 million candidates who sat for the exam, over 1.5 million scored below 200, meaning more than 78% failed to meet the minimum benchmark for university admission.

According to Daily Post newspaper, only 4,756 candidates scored above 320, and about 12,414 scored 300 or more. JAMB also revealed that 2,157 candidates are under investigation for examination malpractice, while 71,701 were absent on exam day. Among 40,247 underage candidates allowed to write, only 467 met the exceptional ability threshold.

Obi described the results as a "deeply broken educational structure" and attributed the poor performance to decades of neglect and underfunding in Nigeria’s education sector. He compared Nigeria’s university enrollment of around 2 million students unfavorably with Bangladesh’s National University, which has over 3.4 million students despite a smaller population, and Turkey’s over 7 million university students.

Public reaction has been mixed, with many expressing frustration over the quality of secondary school education  and calling for urgent reforms. Obi emphasized that education must be treated as a strategic national investment, the most powerful tool for national development and poverty reduction, urging aggressive funding to build a prosperous and equitable Nigeria