Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has dismissed calls for refunds from candidates who incurred charges while repeatedly attempting to check their results during a delay in releasing scores from the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The controversy followed the board’s failure to release results for candidates who sat the examination on Friday, April 17, by the time it had indicated, leaving many candidates waiting and making multiple attempts to access scores they had been led to expect were imminent.
JAMB spokesperson Fabian Benjamin apologised for the delay on Saturday, explaining that the board’s Chief Executive had been away on an important engagement, and assured candidates the results would be available “surely before nightfall” on Sunday, April 19.
When contacted over demands for refunds, however, Benjamin rejected any liability. “Why would you say they deduct money for something that has not been released? When we release results, we will tell Nigerians. So what refunds are you talking about? If they check, how is that supposed to be our business?” he said, insisting the board had not officially announced a release at the time candidates made their attempts.
He confirmed that registrar Ishaq Oloyede had been in Lagos for an official engagement but had since returned to Abuja, and reiterated that the delayed results would be published soon.
The results for candidates who sat the examination on Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18, were eventually released on Sunday evening, with JAMB confirming that a total of 1,264,940 results from the two days were available for candidates to check.
A total of 2,243,816 candidates registered for the 2026 UTME, representing a 10.5 percent increase from the 2.03 million recorded in 2025, with the examination running in four daily sessions to manage congestion at Computer-Based Test centres across Nigeria.
