Daniel Otera
What should have been a moment of celebration for one of Nigeria’s brightest young minds has instead become the subject of a national controversy. Chinedu Okeke, who topped the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) with a staggering score of 375 out of 400, is now caught in a storm over his identity, academic record, and eligibility all due to what appears to be a conflict in institutional data.
The situation has triggered nationwide debate over whether Nigeria’s education and identity management systems are equipped to protect genuine students or whether they are inadvertently setting them up for suspicion.
When the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released the list of top scorers in the 2025 UTME, Chinedu’s name quickly rose to national prominence. At just 18, the aspiring mechanical engineer had outperformed nearly two million candidates, securing one of the highest scores in recent years.
But the excitement quickly turned to confusion.
JAMB’s Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, raised an alarm, stating that Mr Okeke was already registered in the board’s system as a fourth-year medical student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).
“We contacted UNN and the feedback confirmed that Chinedu is still a student of Medicine and Surgery,” the professor said during a press briefing.
For many Nigerians, that revelation didn’t add up.
“How can someone be in their fourth year in Medicine and still sit for UTME to apply for Mechanical Engineering?” asked a Facebook user. “The timelines don’t even match. JAMB should investigate, not attack.”
At the centre of the controversy is JAMB’s policy mandating the use of the National Identity Number (NIN) for all UTME candidates, a policy introduced in 2021 to curb impersonation and enhance data accuracy.
Speaking at a press briefing in March 2021, Professor Oloyede explained that the board adopted the NIN system to reduce identity fraud during examination registration.
“We don’t even require the name of the candidate; we just want the NIN,” he said, as quoted by Vanguard. “It helps us to avoid impersonation and other forms of malpractice.”
Similarly, JAMB spokesperson Dr Fabian Benjamin confirmed that the NIN was made compulsory to “streamline candidate data and ensure a clean admission process.”
Since implementation, the policy has become central to UTME registration. Candidates cannot proceed without validating their identity through the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
But instead of solving identity problems, the policy appears to have created new layers of confusion.
According to Alex Onyia, CEO of Educare, an education technology company, the issue may have stemmed from incorrect integration of Chinedu’s NIN data.
“He already corrected the error with JAMB in 2021. That correction is visible on his profile,” said Mr Onyia, who claimed to have spoken to the candidate’s parents.
He insisted that Chinedu is from Anambra State, not Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos, as JAMB alleged.
“What we’re seeing is a mix-up from the NIMC database which JAMB pulled from,” he said.
But JAMB is standing its ground. In a statement signed by Dr Benjamin, the board maintained that the information in its possession remains factual and consistent.
“The assertion that JAMB retrieved incorrect details from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is unequivocally false,” the statement read. “The data submitted by the candidate in 2021 remains valid, and the review of his academic records at UNN confirms his enrollment.”
JAMB further stressed that it does not alter candidate data but only uses what NIMC provides.
“If there are inconsistencies, they originate from the candidate’s side,” the board stated.
The case has sparked wider questions about how well Nigeria’s institutions protect students who are trying to build their futures through education. While the use of NIN was introduced to streamline identity verification for public examinations, it has become a source of frustration for many candidates.
Since 2021, the NIMC has made the NIN a mandatory requirement for UTME registration, promising a more secure and efficient system. However, students across the country have reported persistent issues with their biodata particularly wrong dates of birth, mismatched names, and incorrect local government origins.
In 2024, the commission launched a self-service portal and mobile app to help Nigerians update their personal information without visiting a registration centre. Yet, by May 2025, the cost of correcting a date of birth had risen to ₦28,574, while corrections to name, address, or phone number each attracted a fee of ₦2,000, according to official NIMC guidelines confirmed by TheCable and Vanguard.
The commission also maintains that a date-of-birth change can only be made once in a lifetime and must be backed by an official birth certificate from the National Population Commission.
“The process is intended to protect the integrity of citizens’ identity records, but it ends up punishing people for mistakes made during registration often beyond their control,” said Yemi Abolade, an education consultant and digital rights advocate. “Students from poor families are hit the hardest.”
While JAMB insists it only works with verified data from NIMC, education stakeholders have criticised the lack of a coordinated dispute resolution system especially in cases like Chinedu’s, where a young person’s future is tied to institutional discrepancies.
For now, Chinedu Okeke remains at the centre of a controversy he may not have created. His UTME score remains among the highest ever recorded in Nigeria. But the credibility of his achievement now hangs in the balance.
JAMB says it is awaiting final confirmation from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka on whether Mr Okeke is still enrolled. If the university confirms he has left, the board says it will notify the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for possible delisting, a move that could allow the candidate to proceed with his new application to study Engineering.