The South-East Caucus in the House of Representatives has insisted that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) must cancel the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), describing it as a "catastrophic institutional failure."

Hon. Iduma Igariwey, who leads the South-East Caucus, made this demand during an interview on Channels Television on Tuesday evening, stating that the recent admission of errors by JAMB was insufficient to justify proceeding with the examination results.

"The whole thing has lost its integrity. It has lost its fairness. People who took the time and prepared for exams were no longer in a position to take those exams," Igariwey stated emphatically.

The lawmaker's comments follow JAMB's acknowledgment of a "technical glitch" and "human error" that affected nearly 400,000 candidates who were asked to retake their examinations. According to Igariwey, this unprecedented situation has compromised the fairness and integrity of the entire examination process.

"What we mainly did was to say these exams just must be done the proper way, the right way. So, that's why we are saying that the exam has to be cancelled, so that the right thing is done in the first place," he explained.

Igariwey criticized JAMB's decision to reschedule the affected examinations within 48 hours, describing it as "unreasonable and poorly thought out." He noted that many students were unable to make it to examination halls for the rescheduled tests on May 16.

"JAMB cannot just, after two days, set another set of exams. You haven't even told Nigerians that you have corrected whatever led to the initial problem," the lawmaker argued. "People are calling for an investigation. People are calling for an examination of what happened. And then you have set those exams right immediately again."

The South-East Caucus's intervention comes amid growing concerns about the conduct of the 2025 UTME, with reports indicating that JAMB plans to release resit results for the affected 379,000 candidates on Wednesday.

This controversy has sparked wider discussions about the integrity of Nigeria's tertiary education admission process, with some reports suggesting that universities might accept lower JAMB scores (as low as 140-160) for the 2025 admission cycle.

The situation continues to develop as stakeholders await JAMB's official response to the cancellation demands from the South-East Representatives Caucus.