APPEAL TO HER EXCELLENCY, SENATOR OLUREMI TINUBU, CON, THE FIRST LADY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, FOR INTERVENTION ON THE AGE RESTRICTION POLICY FOR UNIVERSITY ADMISSION (2025/2026 SESSION)
Your Excellency,
We write to you today, not just as concerned parents, but on behalf of our children crying to you, the Mother of the Nation, for help.
Across the country, teenagers and their mothers are in tears. A daughter turned to her mother after seeing her excellent results and asked in anguish:
“Mummy, what else do they want from me? I have passed WAEC, I have passed JAMB, yet I am told I cannot go to the university because I am a few months under 16.”
That mother was speechless. But she was not hopeless, because she believes that Nigeria’s No. 1 Mother, Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, will hear her child’s cry and intervene.
Your Excellency, the policy is that, for the 2025 academic session and beyond, JAMB requires candidates to be a minimum of 16 years old by September 30, 2025, to be eligible for admission to Nigerian tertiary institutions.
We do not oppose the principle behind the policy. Indeed, age regulation in education is commendable. But where it went wrong was in its point of enforcement that is the abrupt implementation. The policy was announced in 2024 when the affected students were already in SS2 and actively preparing for WAEC and JAMB. To apply such a directive retroactively, without transitional provisions, creates unnecessary disorientation and emotional setbacks. A phased approach, starting from junior secondary level, just as recently done for JSS1 entry age, would have been more just and logical. If truly maturity is the concern, then the adjustment should begin from entry age into primary school, not at the exit point of secondary school, when these children have already laboured, excelled, and are looking forward to their university admission.
More painful is the contradiction this creates in our society. In some parts of Nigeria, a girl under 13 is not deemed too young for marriage, yet a brilliant less than 16-year-old who has passed WAEC and JAMB is branded “too young” to go to university, being a few months shy of turning 16. This inconsistency is unjust, confusing, and disheartening. If at 13 a child can be considered “mature enough” for marriage, how then is a much older child denied education, the very tool that empowers, protects, and dignifies them?
We mothers see their tears. We hear their frustrations. We worry about the danger of idleness, the mental strain and its impact on their mental health, and the loss of motivation this enforced waiting period brings. To keep these brilliant children at home for an entire year, doing nothing, is to expose them to depression, risky behaviour, and a weakening of their academic zeal.
Your Excellency, we plead with you as a mother, a grandmother, and an advocate of youth development to use your loving and influential voice to ensure that:
1. Students who will turn 16 before the end of the 2025/2026 academic session (September, 2026) are allowed to process admission this year.
2. JAMB removes the portal restriction that currently blocks these candidates from securing placements.
3. Future enforcement of this policy begins at the entry point of education (primary school), not at the finishing line of secondary school, so that families and schools can plan and adjust appropriately.
Ma, these children are not rule-breakers; they are diligent, disciplined, and bright. They have done all we asked of them: studied hard, passed WAEC, excelled in JAMB, only to be told that their age, not their merit, disqualifies them. Their future should not be delayed because of a policy loophole they did not create.
As mothers, our tears are flowing, but we are consoled by our belief that you will hear us. You have always stood for fairness, compassion, and the wellbeing of young Nigerians. We know that if you speak, this injustice will be reconsidered.
Please, Ma, let these children’s tears not continue for the next decade. Help them enter their tomorrow with hope.
With utmost respect and trust in your motherly heart.
Atiba Adeniran Samuel and Omotayo Omokayode for the Concerned Parents