It is not just tough to get into a Nigerian university; it is almost like the system is built to keep you out. If you have ever watched a brilliant teenager cry after seeing their JAMB score or sat with a parent wondering why their child cannot find a space in any university after trying for three years, you know the pain.
It is not bad luck. It is not always about low scores. The truth is harder to swallow: the system was never designed to carry us all.
If you read The Great Betrayal: How Nigeria Is Setting Its Students Up to Fail, you might have walked away with a mix of anger and helplessness. You are not alone. The piece ignited a quiet storm, the kind that simmers in the minds of those who know the truth but rarely hear it said aloud. That truth was simple: Nigeria’s education system is not broken by accident. It is designed to exclude.
This article is a continuation of that painful but necessary conversation. It digs deeper into one of the most glaring instruments of exclusion, JAMB, and questions the very logic of a system that prides itself on merit while practising institutional marginalisation. It is written for readers who are ready to ask harder questions and face the uncomfortable answers.
“Annually, only 22 percent of candidates secure admission. A staggering 78 percent are shut out, not necessarily because they are unqualified, but because the system lacks the will and vision to accommodate them.”
In today’s Nigeria, to dream is to gamble. For millions of young people who prepare year after year for university entrance exams, the odds are not in their favour. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, the national gatekeeper to higher education, has ultimately become an engine of disappointment.
Annually, only 22 percent of candidates secure admission. A staggering 78 percent are shut out, not necessarily because they are unqualified, but because the system lacks the will and vision to accommodate them.
What becomes of these abandoned students?
We have seen the underbelly of this betrayal. Some drift into informal labour markets; others vanish into the margins of society. But an increasingly visible portion have turned to their smartphones and found a new refuge in content creation. TikTok. Instagram. YouTube. A video today, a reel tomorrow. It feels productive. It feels hopeful. But is it sustainable?
Let us not deceive ourselves. For many, this is not a deliberate career choice. It is an act of economic survival in a country where formal education has locked its doors. And while a few may find fame and fortune online, the majority remain trapped in a digital hustle, substituting virality for validation.
The core issue here is not about the value of digital creativity. It is about the reason so many are flocking to it. When nearly 80 percent of those seeking admission are left out each year, it is no longer a coincidence. It is state-engineered exclusion. And it is thriving in plain sight.
Nigeria, it seems, is more committed to policies that create social strata than to those that level them. The education system has become a sorting machine, not a springboard. JAMB, in its current form, does not measure preparedness; it manages scarcity. It thrives not by identifying talent but by rationing opportunity.
This is not sustainable. This is not education. It is institutional classism disguised as policy.
The consequences are predictable. A generation of young people grow up believing they are not good enough, not because they lack intellect but because they were not given a chance. We are cultivating national insecurity, psychological, economic, and literal, by failing to invest in the intellectual future of our youth.
The solution must begin with the courage to confront this unjust system. Nigeria must deconstruct centralised assessments that ignore the socio-economic disparities among students.
We need a diversified, localised education strategy, one that includes polytechnics, vocational centres, community colleges, and open access institutions. We must make it clear that success is not solely defined by a university degree, nor should access to higher learning be monopolised by a single board.
Education should be a ladder out of poverty, not a wall that keeps the poor in their place.
Until then, as stated in The Great Betrayal, we are not merely failing students; we are abandoning a generation. And this time, we are watching them livestream their despair, one viral post at a time.
