Teacher Responds as Student Goes 48 Hours Without Food Over Disappointing UTME Scores
A Nigerian educator has expressed worry about a female student who allegedly went without food for two days after receiving an unusually poor score on the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Obanuso Temitope Obanuso, the teacher who prepares pupils for the exam, posted about the incident on Facebook, indicating that the girl is distraught over her result and is requesting an official review. He claims she is so confident in her ability that she is willing to be punished if her score stays below 300 after a proper re-evaluation.
“I have six pupils who got close to 300 last year and were issued results below 160. These are serious, talented students. They did their best. One of them hasn’t eaten for 48 hours. She has been asking with me to call JAMB so that if they review her work and find her score less than 300, she will be penalized because she was aware of what she done.”
The teacher also stated that he has received numerous communications from anxious parents and children, indicating a potential widespread problem. He questioned the widely held belief that widespread failure is due to pupils’ lack of earnestness.
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“I have dozens of parents and students in my direct messages. They’re helpless. How do you explain the reduction in students from 270 or 280 in 2024 to 123 and 132 in 2025? Everyone believes that the widespread failure is due to a lack of professionalism. This is a falsehood. Nigerian students are bright. Are students more serious in Europe than America? Which country in the globe does not have a high prevalence of social media and phone fondling among youth? Go check how our students performed in international exams and contests. Not everyone is unserious. Many of these students are more serious than the young adults who criticize them.
Obanuso’s article quickly went viral, sparking debates over the UTME grading system, student mental health, and the validity of recent exam results.
Responding to the post…
According to @Omolola Prosper, there are significant issues with JAMB this year. “How to get justice, Koko, because this is our Nigeria.”
@Simeon Olukunle said, “Until Nigeria occurs to you, you’ll assume other people who complain are lazy and anti-the current government. As we all know, Jamb, as a government agency, will always win; when I first heard about the results and people blaming poor reading culture, I just laughed.”
