Girl 19 Drinks Rat Poison Over Low UTME Score, As JAMB Admits Technical Error

A man who gave his name as Mr Opesusi Oluwafemi has narrated the awful story of how his teenage daughter took her own life after scoring low marks in the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

The bereaved father of the wailed that her 19-years-old daughter committed suicide

Mr Opesusi Oluwafemi, father of the 19 years old Faith Opesusi Timileyin who committed suicide for scoring low marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, has explained that his deceased daughter committed suicide by taking rat poison.

According to reports, late Faith, who intended to study Microbiology in the university, took her own life after seeing her UTME results.

Opesusi told BBC Pidgin on Thursday that the daughter was devastated after discovering that she scored just 146.

“My daughter scored very high in last year’s JAMB result. This year, they gave her 146 and that was what made her drink rat poison.

“She was devastated and disappointed when she saw her results,” he said.

According to him, the daughter did not open up. “If she had opened up, we would have consoled and told her that there is hope.”

This is even as JAMB had on Wednesday, admitted to a technical error that compromised the integrity of the results from the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 157 centres nationwide.

Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, during a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, revealed that the results of 379,997 candidates were affected.

He said the board discovered discrepancies linked to faulty server updates in its Lagos and south-east zones, which led to the failure to upload candidates’ responses during the first three days of the examination.

Oloyede said the problem, which was caused by one of the two technical service providers for the exercise, went undetected before the results were released.

According to the Registrar, 65 centres in Lagos (206,610 candidates) and 92 centres in the south-east zone (173,387 candidates) were affected, bringing the total number of impacted candidates to 379,997.

To address the issue, JAMB said it will conduct a rescheduled UTME for all affected candidates starting Friday, May 16.

The board said affected candidates will be notified via SMS, email, and phone calls, and are advised to reprint their examination slips for details on the rescheduled tests.

Oloyede noted that JAMB has engaged with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to ensure that the rescheduled UTME does not clash with ongoing WASSCE examinations.

“As the Registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible, including for the negligence of the service provider. I unreservedly apologise for it,” Oloyede said.

The results from JAMB’s 2025 UTME were released on May 9.

An analysis indicated that more than 78 per cent of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum obtainable points.