The often mouthed persecution of the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria reared its ugly head on Thursday as the apex Igbo body, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide asked the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to allocate 300 scores to all candidates from the South-East for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) or face legal action.
The National President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, in a statement faulted the explanation given by the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, who had earlier blamed computer glitches for the mass failure of candidates in Lagos and Owerri zones.
According to Nnabuike, it was a disservice for JAMB to subject the candidates to “another round of mental torture, stress and risk” for no faults of theirs.
Quoting him, “We want to state unequivocally that our people will not accept any fresh examination, having already been subjected to mental torture by JAMB.
“The candidates are not in the right frame of mind to undergo another examination, having faced mental torture ever since the fake results were announced.”
The president continued, “Igbos are very brilliant people and could have made 300 and above. It was a deliberate design to punish and sabotage the people of the South-East, clearly to deny them education opportunities.
“Should JAMB fail to heed to our request, we shall not hesitate to drag them to court. No form of crocodile tears by the registrar will save the board.”
Recall that the registrar of the examination body, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, admitted errors in the just concluded examination Oloyede, during a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to Oloyede, 206,610 in 65 centres were affected in Lagos, and 92 centres in Owerri zone were affected, comprising 173,387 candidates in the five states of the South East.
The Jamb registrar added that the board had resolved to reschedule a fresh examination for the affected candidates to make up for the technical errors that undermined their scores in the recently released results.
The Ohanaeze youth leader further demanded to know who would bear the cost of the fresh examination both in finance and stress, adding, “What of the risk of moving to the examination locations in a country ravaged by insecurity?”
The youth wing therefore demanded that JAMB allocate 300 score to all the South-East and Lagos state candidates affected “by its own error, not that of the candidates”.
