The alarm rang at 4:00 AM. Madam Mary, like hundreds of other parents across Asaba, Delta State, was already awake — packing snacks, checking bus schedules, praying traffic wouldn’t swallow the morning whole. Her child had a 6:30 AM slot at one of JAMB’s accredited centers. She wasn’t going to miss it. Nobody was taking chances with their child’s future.
Except JAMB, apparently, had other plans.
What was supposed to be a routine Mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on Saturday turned into a case study in institutional unpreparedness. Generators were absent. Electricity vanished mid-exam. Computer sets refused to activate. Candidates sat waiting, staring at blank screens, as an entire morning — and years of preparation — hung in limbo. By the time it became clear that nothing was going to work, the centers simply dismissed the students. No formal explanation. No apology. Just: go home.
This isn’t just a bad day. It’s a symptom of something far deeper.
What Actually Happened in Asaba That Morning
Let’s be precise about the sequence of events, because the details matter.
The first batch of candidates arrived at their centers ahead of the 6:30 AM start time. Some actually began the examination. Then the power went out. Standard protocol would have been to immediately switch to a backup generator — a basic requirement for any exam center hosting a computer-based test. That didn’t happen. Why? Because several centers reportedly had no generators at all.
Candidates waited. One hour passed. Then more time. No generator hummed to life. No JAMB official appeared with answers. Eventually, students were told to leave — with their examinations unsubmitted, their scores in limbo, and their confidence shaken.
The second batch of candidates never even got started. With the first group’s session incomplete, there was no clean handover. The day collapsed on itself.
One candidate, who asked not to be named, captured the anxiety perfectly: “Our fear now is that we are not sure the examination would be submitted because we did not finish. If it is not submitted, how do we know our scores?”
That question deserves a direct answer from JAMB. It hasn’t received one.
A 6:30 AM Start Time — Who Does That Serve?
Here’s something worth sitting with. JAMB mandated a 6:30 AM reporting time for candidates. In Nigeria, in 2026, with the security challenges that come with predawn movement, especially for young people. Madam Mary woke up at 4:00 AM to make that happen. Families from distant communities did the same.
That kind of sacrifice isn’t unusual for Nigerian parents. They are accustomed to doing extraordinary things for ordinary opportunities. But when institutions set policies without thinking through the real-world implications — the transport costs, the safety risks, the sheer exhaustion of teenagers sitting an exam after hours of pre-dawn travel — it reveals a troubling disconnect.
A mock exam, by its very nature, should reduce candidate stress, not amplify it. It should simulate exam conditions closely enough to be useful, while being forgiving enough that technical failures don’t feel catastrophic. Saturday achieved neither of those goals.
Mrs. Stella Macauley, Director of Public Communication at the Delta State Ministry of Information, confirmed that the state had ensured there would be no restrictions on movement during the monthly sanitation exercise. That part worked. The exam itself did not.
Is This a Pattern? Yes. And That’s the Problem.
Anyone who followed the 2025 UTME cycle won’t find Saturday’s events surprising. They’ll find them familiar.
In 2025, technical failures forced JAMB to conduct a repeat examination, particularly affecting candidates in the South-West and South-East. The fallout was enormous — mass failures recorded, candidates re-examined under pressure, public trust eroded. JAMB was criticized heavily. Promises were made. Adjustments were announced.
And yet here we are, less than two weeks before the 2026 UTME proper, watching the same scene replay in Asaba. Different city, same chaos. Different candidates, same confusion. The Mock exam — which exists specifically to test readiness — has ironically exposed just how unready the system remains.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern.
The Institute of Continuing Education Center in Asaba was among the affected venues. Virtually all JAMB-accredited centers within Asaba and its environs experienced failures. That scale of collapse across multiple centers isn’t a fluke. It points to systemic gaps: inadequate infrastructure auditing, no redundancy planning, and a lack of accountability protocols when things go wrong.
What Parents Are Really Saying
Beneath the logistics complaints is something rawer: a sense of betrayal.
Nigerian parents pour enormous resources into their children’s JAMB preparation. Lesson fees. Study materials. Registration costs. Transportation. Time off work. For many families — particularly those outside major urban centers — the UTME is the single most important examination their child will ever sit. It determines university admission. It shapes trajectories. It carries immense emotional weight.
When an institution treats that weight casually — when centers lack generators, when officials offer no explanations, when the best response is a reluctant “the situation will improve subsequently” — it isn’t just an operational failure. It’s a breach of trust.
“This is another JAMB show of shame,” Madam Mary said. Blunt words. But you can hear the exhaustion behind them. This isn’t a woman looking to make headlines. She’s a mother who woke up at 4 AM, traveled with her child, took real security risks, and got nothing in return.
Parents aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for basic competence. Generators. Stable internet. Functional computers. A plan B. These aren’t extraordinary requests.
The Candidates Caught in the Middle
Spare a thought specifically for the students. They are the ones with the least power in this situation and the most to lose.
Sitting an exam is already stressful. Sitting one that suddenly goes dark, with no explanation, no timeline, and no certainty about whether your answers will even be recorded — that’s a different kind of pressure. That’s the kind that breeds exam anxiety, erodes confidence, and creates negative associations with high-stakes testing that can follow a young person for years.
The unnamed candidate’s relief that “it is not the examination proper” is bittersweet. Yes, mock results don’t determine admission. But that relief underscores just how high the stakes feel — and how close to disaster Saturday actually came. Two weeks from now, in the actual UTME, there will be no “thank God it’s just a mock.” Failure to submit will mean exactly that: failure.
If JAMB doesn’t fix these infrastructure issues before April, the 2026 UTME could see a repeat of 2025’s mass failures. And this time, the warning signs were visible in broad daylight, in Asaba, on a Saturday morning.
What JAMB Must Do Before the UTME Proper
There are real, practical steps that can — and must — be taken before the main examination begins. None of them are complicated. All of them are necessary.
Every accredited exam center must have a functioning generator with adequate fuel for a full examination day. This should be a non-negotiable condition of accreditation, not an afterthought. Centers that cannot meet this standard should be suspended immediately and candidates redistributed.
JAMB must conduct an emergency infrastructure audit of all centers scheduled for the 2026 UTME. Not a paper audit — a physical one. Someone needs to walk into those centers, test the computers, confirm the internet connections, and verify that backup power is available and operational.
The 6:30 AM start time deserves a serious review. If it must remain, JAMB should at minimum ensure that candidates and parents receive clear, early communication about transportation logistics and that centers in high-risk security areas have safe waiting areas for early arrivals.
When things go wrong — and sometimes they will — there must be a communication protocol. An official statement. A clear explanation to candidates about their exam status. A helpline that actually works. Silence is not a strategy; it’s an abdication.
Finally, the question of Saturday’s unsubmitted exams must be addressed publicly. Those candidates deserve to know their status. Even in a mock examination, uncertainty about scores is unnecessary stress that JAMB could resolve with a single clear announcement.
Two Weeks Is Not a Lot of Time — But It’s Enough
The 2026 UTME is weeks away. That’s not a long window. But institutions have moved fast before when they chose to. The question is whether JAMB will treat this mock exam catastrophe as the urgent signal it is — or whether it will be filed away as another unfortunate incident, regretted and repeated.
Every parent who woke up at 4 AM last Saturday deserves better. Every candidate who sat staring at a blank screen deserves better. Every family that scraped together transport money and examination fees deserves a system that takes their investment seriously.
Nigeria’s university admission process is a high-stakes, high-pressure system already. The least JAMB can do is ensure the infrastructure matches the gravity of what it’s asking these young people to face.
If you’re a candidate preparing for the 2026 UTME, check your exam center’s location in advance, confirm your session time, and if possible, visit the center before your exam date. Know where you’re going. And if you experience technical problems on exam day, document everything — take photos, note the time, and file a formal complaint with JAMB immediately.
Your future is too important to leave entirely in the hands of an unprepared system.
Are you a candidate, parent, or educator with experience from the 2026 Mock UTME? Share your account in the comments. These stories need to be heard — and the pressure on JAMB to get this right needs to be loud and consistent.
