More than 80 percent of the 98,232 candidates eligible for Saturday’s nationwide mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) failed to show up, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has disclosed.

The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who monitored the exercise at the Technology CBT Centre in NAF Valley Estate, Abuja, described the turnout as alarmingly low, with only about 12 percent of registered candidates appearing nationwide.

According to Oloyede, mop-up exams are usually conducted for a limited number of candidates—typically around 4,000 to 5,000—who had genuine reasons, such as illness or technical issues, that prevented them from writing the main UTME.

“Every year, we do mop-up exams for about 4,000 to 5,000 students—those who, for illness or verified technical problems at their centers, missed the exam,” he explained.

However, this year’s mop-up was expanded significantly due to allegations of widespread absenteeism during the main examination. The Board decided to give all absentees a second chance, while also using the opportunity to track impersonators, based on intelligence from security agencies.

“In our wisdom and that of our stakeholders, we felt everyone who missed the main exam should be given another opportunity—whatever the reason. But we also knew we had become wiser,” he said.

JAMB worked in conjunction with the State Security Services (SSS) and the Nigeria Police, gathering intelligence to detect and apprehend exam cheats—particularly impersonators. By keeping the mop-up window open widely, the Board hoped to catch culprits in the act.

Despite over 90,000 candidates being listed for the mop-up, only around 12,000 indicated their willingness to attend, and the actual turnout was even lower.

“Some CBT centres expecting 250 candidates per session saw fewer than 20 attendees. This was anticipated,” Oloyede said.

He attributed much of the malpractice to syndicates, including tutorial centres and some private school proprietors, whom he accused of facilitating organized cheating.

“These are not just students—they are part of a network of exam malpractice. But with the strong commitment from the Ministry of Education, we are confident that exam malpractice will soon be reduced to the barest minimum,” he added.

In a startling revelation, Oloyede said some candidates tried to bypass the biometric verification system by falsely declaring themselves as albinos, attempting to exploit facial recognition vulnerabilities.

“We usually have fewer than 100 albinos sitting for the UTME each year. But this year, 1,787 people claimed to be albinos—450 of them registered at just one CBT center. As if all the albinos in Africa decided to go there,” he noted.

He explained that some facial recognition systems flag lighter skin tones and reddish features more closely, prompting candidates to falsely declare their condition to avoid detection.

“One of the suspects currently in custody revealed this was the first step of the impersonation tactic—declaring as albino to beat the system.”