JAMB: Student who scored 153 in error-plagued UTME now hits 361

A Nigerian student, Nwadike Chukwubikem Chidiebere, has become the face of hope and resilience after dramatically improving his Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) score from 153 to 361 following the rescheduled exam.

The 2025 UTME initially released by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) sparked widespread controversy after over 1.5 million candidates scored below 200. Complaints of inconsistencies prompted the board to launch a review, which uncovered technical errors that impacted the results of numerous candidates.

In response, JAMB conducted a resit exam for the affected students, giving them a second chance to prove themselves.

One of the standout beneficiaries of the exercise is Nwadike Chidiebere, whose new score has gone viral after being shared by education advocate, Alex Onyia. Onyia posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Chidiebere initially scored 153 in the flawed exam, but after the resit, his performance soared to an outstanding 361.

“From 153 few weeks ago and now 361. Is God not awesome?” Onyia wrote, celebrating the turnaround.

The story has since gone viral online as many praised Chidiebere’s resilience and used his case to call for further scrutiny of standardized testing systems in Nigeria.

Read some netizens’ reactions below;

@francis_ranco: “This is nice, but Jamb should sit this 2025 out, and allow the tertiary institutions to have full control of their intakes!”

@Kolintin12: “What about us that have issues but not reschedule all this is not fair people that did on Saturday at 12pm our questions wasn’t complete but they did nothing to it, please help us sir we are also among them.”

@victoryonyeka: “I’ve been sending text messages to JAMB for my daughter’s result, but there has been no response.”

@YouthspireNG: “Thank you for all you do, brother. During my jamb and post UTMR days, for two to three consecutive times, I scored the same thing repeatedly. Somehow, I knew that something was wrong. That was years ago because I have since grabbed two international masters on scholarship.”

@Tobi_Godsent: “I am very happy for the efforts Mr Alex was able to have students resit the jamb exam, however there are many students having problems with scheduling of resit. Also, are there not possibility that this human error will not happen again in future.”

With a new score of 361, Chidiebere now ranks among the top performers in the country—proof that technical failures do not define potential.