19-year-old UTME candidate commits suicide over ‘low score’
Opesusi Faith Timilehin, a candidate of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, has committed suicide in Lagos State.
The 19-year-old reportedly died on Monday after consuming ‘Push Out’ rat poison due to scoring 190 in the just-released Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) result.
According to Guardian newspaper, Timilehin, who was living with her elder sister in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, was said to have sat for the same examination in 2024, and her last year’s result was better than this year.
An eyewitness explained that the deceased, at her sister’s office, requested palm oil to ease the pain she was going through after taking the poison at home.
“But her sister, who didn’t initially know the cause of the pain, ignored her and later raised an alarm after Timilehin confessed on the way to the hospital that she had taken poison at home,” the source stated.
“The shocking revelation is that she was given an admission message via her Gmail yesterday, immediately after she was confirmed dead at Kolak Hospital, Odogunyan,” the source added.
Salient Times reports that UTME is a computer-based examination introduced by JAMB in 1978 for prospective undergraduates in Nigeria.
