By Baba El-Yakubu
The recently released 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) paint a deeply unsettling picture—not because of who passed, but because of who didn’t.
Of the 10 best-performing candidates in the nation, not a single one hails from Northern Nigeria. Equally damning is the list of the 10 most sought-after universities—only one, the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), is located in the North. This is despite the fact that Northern Nigeria covers about 80 per cent of the total landmass and is home to two-thirds of the country’s population. These figures are not just statistics; they are a loud, painful alarm bell warning us about the growing chasm between North and South in terms of educational opportunity, aspiration, and achievement.
Northern Nigeria dominates the country’s population map. States such as Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, and Borno have some of the highest birth rates in the country. A woman in Lagos has an average birth rate of 3.3 children during her lifetime. A woman in Katsina has an average of 7.4. At this rate, it requires more than double the population of child-bearing women in the South to balance the growth of the population in the North. In theory, this demographic advantage should translate to a pool of talented students, innovation hubs, and flourishing academic institutions. Instead, the opposite is happening. The absence of Northern names from the top 10 JAMB performers is symptomatic of a region starved of educational nourishment. When children are not prepared from their early years—due to poor infrastructure, underfunded schools, poorly trained teachers, insecurity, or socio-cultural barriers—they cannot compete on a national level. Year after year, the JAMB results reflect this reality.
Northern Nigeria continues to grapple with some of the highest poverty rates in the country. States in the North East and North West are consistently ranked among the poorest in the nation. Poverty feeds into poor education: families struggling to feed their children often see schooling as a luxury rather than a necessity. For many, sending a child to hawk goods or herd cattle offers more immediate economic return than enrolling them in a school. For example, in 2021, a media personality, Hajiya Laylah Ali Othman decided to adopt a 12-year-old, itinerant cattle herding boy and admitted him into a school. It was a herculean task. She had to plead “multiple times for the family to agree”. Such neglect becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Poor education leads to limited opportunities, which leads to continued poverty. And poverty, in turn, breeds crime, drug abuse, banditry, and extremism—trends we are already witnessing at alarming levels in many northern communities. Today, the region has a significant population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to ongoing conflicts with extremist groups like Boko Haram and banditry. The recent suicide bombing in Borno and spates of kidnapping show that these menaces are still alive. According to one source, the number of IDPs was estimated to be 3.3 million in 2023. About half of them are in Borno State.
It would be easy to blame this crisis on history or culture, but that would be a dishonest and dangerous oversimplification. The current malaise is the result of decades of political negligence and failed leadership in the North. Budgetary allocations to education in most northern states are low, and what is allocated is often mismanaged. Few investments are made in teacher training, curriculum development, girl-child education, or vocational skills development. At the federal level, policies to bridge regional inequalities in education have been half-hearted or poorly implemented. Northern Nigeria is not just falling behind—it is being allowed to fall behind.
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If current trends continue, Northern Nigeria will become a region of unfulfilled potential, riddled with discontent, instability, and deepening poverty. Already, businesses avoid setting up in parts of the North due to insecurity. Talented youths flee to the South or abroad. The region risks becoming a burden to the rest of the country rather than an engine for national growth. And let us be clear: Nigeria cannot rise while more than half of it sinks. The development of the North is not a regional concern—it is a national imperative.
Nine out of the 10 best-performing candidates in the JAMB are going to study engineering. By 2035, they are expected to be among the timber and caliber of our society. How could the North catch up? The path forward is not easy, but it is possible. Let me propose the following: (i)
Radical investment in basic education: Northern states must drastically improve funding and oversight of primary and secondary education. Infrastructure, teacher quality, and access must be prioritized. (ii) Conditional cash transfers and scholarships: Governments should provide financial incentives to poor families to send their children—especially girls—to school. (iii) Special Northern Education Intervention Programme (NEIP): Like UBE and TETFUND, a targeted programme for the North should be launched to address unique educational challenges and support teacher recruitment and training. (iv) Rebuilding northern public universities: Existing northern universities must be retooled to become attractive destinations for high-performing students. This includes improving faculty quality, research output, and infrastructure. And (v) Private sector and religious institutions engagement: Traditional rulers, religious leaders, and private businesses must be co-opted into a grand educational vision. Only a collective response can reverse the damage.
The 2025 JAMB results should shake the conscience of every northern policymaker, parent, and leader. They should also ignite a sense of urgency in Abuja and every Nigerian who believes in justice, equity, and national progress. The North may have the bigger part of Nigeria’s landmass and its largest population. These may have no tangible benefits if we lack the necessary human capital to till the land and leverage the power of the people. As Alexander the Great famously said, “I am not afraid of an arm of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion”. The north is producing shackled lions who cannot be active participants in the 21st century.
The North is bleeding academically, and the consequences will not remain regional. We must act—and act now—if we are to reverse this trajectory and secure a future where every Nigerian child, regardless of geography, has an equal shot at greatness. Because when Northern Nigeria fails, Nigeria fails.
Baba El-Yakubu is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Ahmadu Bello University byjibril@gmail.com
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