The Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections,Peter Obi, has faulted the scheduling of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

This was as he said the early start times are endangering the lives of young students.

Ekwutosblog reports that the 2025 UTME started on Thursday, April 24, 2025, and will end on Monday, May 5, 2025.

The former Anambra State governor, in a strongly worded statement on Sunday, expressed concern over reports that teenagers, many aged between 15 and 17, were being required to arrive at UTME centres as early as 6:30 am.

“These are teenagers forced to travel in the dark, often across dangerous and unfamiliar areas, just to exercise their right to education,” he said.

The philanthropist described the practice as reckless, citing reports of students being involved in road accidents, going missing, and suffering psychological trauma during the examination period.

“Who takes responsibility when a 15- or 16-year-old child disappears or is harmed while trying to access their right to education?” He queried.

He also argued that the issue reflects deeper, systemic problems within Nigeria’s education sector, particularly a lack of adequate infrastructure.

“Nigeria has just about 200 universities for a population of over 200 million people. That’s one university for every one million citizens, a staggering and deeply worrying ratio,” he added.

Obi compared Nigeria’s gross enrollment ratio of around 12 per cent with Indonesia’s 45 per cent, pointing out that the Southeast Asian country, with a population of 280 million, has over 4,000 tertiary institutions.

He, therefore, urged the federal government to significantly increase investment in education.

Obi suggested that even reaching half of Indonesia’s infrastructure, around 2,000 universities, would improve access and reduce the risk to students.

He urged a deliberate expansion of Nigeria’s education system to reflect the country’s growing population and protect the well-being of future generations.

Responding, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, attempted to distinguish between pre-test verification and actual UTME start times.

Earlier, a teenage girl was reported to have gone missing during her movement to a UTME centre in Ajah, Lagos.

By Our Correspondent

The department of Nursing Science of Imo State University, (Orlu Campus) has since last year become  a boiling point over the Vice Chancellor’s insensitive position of sacking over 250 Nursing Science students.

It is all about the students from various departments who transferred to the department of nursing science. These students, because of administrative bottle-necks, according to them filled certain forms (transfer forms) and moved to the Orlu campus of the University housing the nursing department.

According to them they moved to Orlu because it would take ages for their papers to be approved and signed. So they had to move pending the school approval. The students pointed out that this has been the tradition.

At a point according to them, during their four hundred level the school started discriminating against them and started calling them  ‘non bona fide’ students. Our correspondent gathered that meanwhile, these students have been paying all the necessary fees, including school fees, accreditation fees, etc. The school used them to complete all necessary processes after charging them several levies, only for them to turn around to dump them. The students said they contributed heavily and took it upon themselves to refurbish and paint the departmental building inorder to impress the accreditation panel. All of a sudden the school is telling them to leave.

The students told our correspondent that during their third and fourth year examinations, their papers were sorted out and dumped and that for those two years they have never been issued with any results.

Now in January this year, when Governor Hope Uzodimma was celebrating his first year in his second tenure, one of the affected students called in a phone-in programme asking for the governor’s fatherly intervention.The governor then made a pronouncement on air that he had pardoned those students. He emotionally said that five years in a girl’s life was not something to toy with.The governor said he had told the VC to reabsorb these nursing students and have their parents pay a penalty. The vice Chancellor was said to have rejected the governor’s order on the condition that he must be formally informed.

Just last week, the school authorities published lists of all the affected students with a matching order that they go back and start from their former departments which they had left three years back . They were told to go back to the second year, while their former course-mates in those departments had graduated.

Information reaching our newsdesk said just last Easter Monday, these students sent a delegation to Omuma, the governor’s home to see the governor and plead for another pardon upon the one he had issued in January.

Sources close to the Government House indicated that Governor Uzodimma reiterated his earlier  amnesty granted to the students with a caveat that they should step down one year, that to 400 level. That is to say those in the fifth year should go back to four hundred level.The students were said to be very happy with the concession and left the Governor’s country home joyfully. According to them, the students said the governor promised to settle other hitches with the Nursing Council and other problems in a month’s time. He then instructed them to join in the exams which was supposed to kick off by last Tuesday.

However, to the shock of the students and their parents, the school authorities refused them entry into the examination hall yesterday, being Tuesday the 22nd of April saying that they would get a written instructions from the Governor through the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Uchefule Chukwumaeze. The students on the other hand insisted that no examination would be taken in the school in the nursing department unless they are accommodated in line with the Governor’s directives.

Surprisingly, in the morning of Wednesday, 23rd April, information said soldiers had besieged the school gate to prevent the aggrieved students from participating in the examinations.

Meanwhile, reliable sources had quoted the VC to have  challenged the Governor for not being in tone with the university procedures, adding that the governor cannot dictate for him.

Imo people, most of them that spoke on condition of anonymity, advise the VC to quickly resolve this issue by obeying the governor’s directives, to forestall a breakdown of law and order and save these children and their parents the trauma they have been passing through.

The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Alausa, has announced the release of ₦50 billion by the Federal Government to the academic and non-academic staff unions of federal universities for the settlement of earned allowances, as promised by President Bola Tinubu.

This was disclosed in a statement on Wednesday by the Director of Press at the Federal Ministry of Education, Folasade Boriowo.

Boriowo described the move “as yet another testament to Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to fundamentally transform Nigeria’s education sector.

“It reflects the administration’s bold resolve to transition the nation from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy through strategic investments in education, infrastructure, and human capital.

“This intervention is not just a financial transaction—it is a reaffirmation of our President’s belief in the capacity of Nigerian youth and the invaluable role that academic and non-academic staff play in nurturing them,” she quoted the minister as saying.

“By prioritising their welfare, we are laying the foundation for a future where every Nigerian child receives highly qualitative and globally competitive education,” she added.

Alausa expressed Tinubu’s heartfelt appreciation to the academic and non-academic unions for their sustained trust in his administration and for fostering an atmosphere of peace and cooperation across Nigeria’s federal institutions.

“Notably, the country is currently experiencing one of the longest uninterrupted academic sessions in recent history—a feat attributed to the mutual understanding and shared commitment between the government and the university community,” the statement read.