By Hadiza Abdulkadir
The Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigerian Police have arrested 20 suspects in Abuja for allegedly hacking into the servers of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the National Examination Council (NECO) to manipulate UTME scores.
The suspects, part of a larger syndicate of over 100 members, reportedly charged candidates between ₦700,000 and ₦2 million to obtain inflated results. Many are said to operate private schools and special centres used for the fraud.
Sources indicate that the group aimed to discredit JAMB’s Computer-Based Testing (CBT) system and discourage its future use by other examination bodies, such as WAEC and NECO.
The arrests follow JAMB’s release of the 2025 UTME results, in which over 78% of candidates scored below 200 out of 400.
Registrar Ishaq Oloyede earlier cited server faults affecting nearly 380,000 candidates, prompting a resit exam from May 16.