UTME Commences Nationwide As CBT Centre Blames JAMB For Irregularities
By Alice Etuka, Abuja
The 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) has commenced across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The exercise scheduled to commence on Thursday, April 16, 2026, ran smoothly in some centers while others were marked with glitches.
In the Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre located at Skillpath International, Karu, Abuja, candidates were already seated as early as 8:00am. However, there were complaints about faulty desktops, mouse and keyboards.
The first exam was billed to start by 8:30am but candidates experienced a 15-minute delay from JAMB as the questions could not display on their desktops screen until about 8:45 am.
One of the CBT technicians simply referred to as Nonso, faulted JAMB for the delay in commencement of the examination saying this could destabilise candidates. He explained that the same thing happened during the Mock examination:
“They delayed for about an hour because of uploading of questions. This can make candidates forget what they read. The candidates are supposed to just walk in, log onto their system and write their exams. The delay contributes to poor performance”, he said.
JAMB General Monitor Group Representative, Nnenna Akajemeli was however displeased with the center as technical glitches kept interrupting the examination.
“There’s an issue, they have discrepancies. While some systems were working, others were not working. And so, they had to escalate. The technical job person had to escalate.
“Some systems have glitches while others were working. So, as a result of the escalation, they’ve been asked to reschedule the whole process. So, they will redo it for this batch because it will now jeopardize the success of their exam.
“This is just in line and in keeping with what JAMB has promised to do for them So that nobody’s chances are compromised. So, it’s just to be fair to them”, she said.
Speaking further, Akajemeli noted that the candidates’ network went off for about 30 minutes, this, she blamed the CBT center for not being adequately prepared for the exercise, wondering why they were approved by JAMB in the first place.
Addressing the center owner, Mr Alphonsus Ekpenyong she said: “JAMB has a standard. 250 systems on the ground and then backup. Where are they set on backup? there’s no backup system. So, why did JAMB approve the center if you don’t have backup system?
“I’m from another center and these things are provided. And you have been given adequate information as to what you are to do. And so, the fault comes back to you.
“For instance, some of the cables, somebody will touch it, you don’t have exams and they move around and then it goes off. There are glitches. The systems could not carry JAMB ‘s new app. Now, they are going to reschedule all of them. And that is not fair”.
“Let there be a mini meeting. So, that you will now agree on how to improve on the next batch. So, that you don’t have the repetition of what I told you”.
Mr ekpeyong however argued that his center was not incompetent, they had not experienced such disruption in past years:
“We didn’t have a problem the time we were using the old browser, by the time we were upgrading these things, that we discovered, we got at least up to 250.
“To be frank, we were having another exam, we started last week and finished on Tuesday. So, we didn’t have time to work on the system. So immediately they finished, we started to work on the system. So, we put all the efforts.
“For the past two nights, they have been working here on this thing. And at least with what we got, we thought we were not expecting anything.
“We have never had problems in this center. We have never had one single problem in this center. You know this new browser. They just released it on Monday, and today is Thursday. So, we didn’t have enough time to work on it”, he said.
He however promised that subsequent examinations would be better as he was already making efforts to fix the problem.
4000 out of the 2.2 million candidates are expected to write their UTME in the Skillpath International Academy, Karu CBT Center.
