Twenty suspects have been arrested in Abuja by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Police Force over their alleged involvement in hacking the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results.
According to a report by Channels Television, the suspects belong to a wider syndicate believed to comprise over 100 individuals. The group is said to specialized in compromising the servers of examination bodies such as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
Security sources disclosed that the suspects confessed to manipulating JAMB’s Computer-Based Test (CBT) system in a bid to discredit the examination process and discourage its use by NECO and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
It was gathered that some of the suspects operate private schools and “special centres,” charging between ₦700,000 and ₦2 million to fraudulently boost candidates’ scores.
The arrests follow the release of the 2025 UTME results, where over 78 percent of candidates reportedly scored below 200 out of a possible 400. JAMB had earlier admitted that a technical glitch affected the results of nearly 380,000 candidates, prompting a rescheduled examination between May 16 and May 19.
Source: Channels Television
