Let Jamb and Prof Oloyede be, by Francis Ewherido,
Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), is a man I have enormous respect for. I have not met him personally, but I admire him from afar. That is one of the hallmarks of impactful people. You don’t have to know or have physical encounter with them to feel their positive impact on the society. I have written two article on him before and do not wish to repeat myself here. My focus today is on the 2025 JAMB Exam, the mass failure and the uproar that followed. One of my wards who took the exam in Lagos told me that most of his classmates scored below 200 and the score he got though above 200 was below his expectation because “I prepared very well and the answers were easy.”
The uproar has been persistent and like many controversies in modern day Nigeria, ethnic colouration has been read into it. Prof Oloyede is a Yoruba man and devout Muslim, but in all the actions he has taken in public office, I have not seen ethnic or religious colouration. May be a saboteur caused the the glitch that led to the mass failure because Oloyede will not go out of his way to make students from a certain ethnic group or religion fail massively. He has no reason to do that. He is very knowledgeable and knows the futility. An upright man that I have come to know from afar, he broke down in tears and publicly admitted the errors last Wednesday during a press conference.
Some people with religious and ethnic bias and cynics leanings are not impressed. They see his action as shedding of crocodile tears and trying to get public sympathy and have asked for his resignation. Prof Oloyede is not an actor, so he is not acting. He is a professor of Islamic studies. He also does not play to the gallery. He doesn’t need to. He is not one of those sit-tight leaders who want to cling unto power by all means. He’s a simple man and when you live a simple life, your needs are few and very easy to meet. It diminishes the urge to cling to power.
Oloyede is genuine. Mistakes have been made and he has publicly taken responsibility in a society where people in positions fling subordinates under the bus rather than take responsibility, where people in positions prefer to spend millions of naira to paint a wrong to be right, where people in authority are cocky and would rather insult those with opposing views than simply apologise.
The issue is, what is the way forward? He assured that the affected 379,997 candidates would be communicated through Short Message Service (SMS) by last Thursday, so that they could reprint their slips the rescheduled examinations on Friday and Saturday. My ward confirmed to me that some of his his classmates have received the SMS to write their exam today (Saturday). This is the Nigeria I crave for. Admit errors and quickly proffer solutions. As humans, there must be mistakes. It happens in every society. How do you react? That is where we have fallen short. Our reaction is what has arrested or truncated our progress as a nation.
Some people have called for the scrapping of JAMB. Many of us either do not have our facts before we talk or just talk off-cuff. Go and check the records since Oloyede became the registrar of JAMB. In terms of operations, credibility and transparency, there’s been a massive improvement. In fact, in terms of efficiency and accountability, JAMB performs far better than the national average and many other government-owned agencies. And you want JAMB scrapped because of one glitch?
Some people have called for individual universities to handle their admissions as was the case before JAMB came to be. I am totally opposed to it. Times have changed. There were major criteria then that were expressly spelt out. Nigeria was a much saner and cleaner society then. Things have deteriorated: merit, transparency, probity and accountability, etc. The ivory tower has not been spared the rot. In the 80s when I was in the university, there was still sanity. By the 90’s I started hearing of lecturers being sorted out (bribed). May be it also happened in the 80s and before but I am unaware.
Once males and females are together, I cannot vouch that what can go wrong will not go wrong, but there were fewer cases of sexual harassment in the 80s than we have now. It was really rampant a few years ago until some lecturers and professors were convicted and jailed, while others were disgraced. It has reduced, but it’s still there. It now goes beyond sexual harassment. Sex for grades is now involved.
There is also no transparency in the expenditure of the internally generated revenues and government subvention to some universities. Research grants have also been allegedly diverted. How many universities can submit themselves for audit by government-appointed external auditors without panic? The next thing, various unions will threaten to go on strike.
I noticed that one university was producing many doctorate degree students. It is a good development, but I decided to dig further. I asked an insider who should know if all the doctorate degrees awarded were merited. He smiled and confessed that many of them were merited, but some were purchased. I am not talking of honorary doctorate degree. I am talking of the one awarded when the student has been found to be worthy both in character and learning.
Nigerians are like the anus. There’s scarcely any anus without some sh*t. It’s just that some are cleaner than others. But those with sh*t-infested anuses need to “off their mics.” People who want equity go with clean hands. Your hands cannot be filthy and you ask for equity. There’s nothing wrong with universities organizing their own entrance exams, but not under the current condition in some Nigerian universities. Many of the students taking JAMB Exam are under 18. The age of consent in Nigeria is 18. Let us not make under-aged girls vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Let us not also increase avenues for extortion of parents by those saddled with admission in Nigerian universities. It is already rampant.
Let JAMB and Oloyede be. Oloyede has proven to be an upright man at the University of Ilorin as Vice Chancellor, JAMB as Registrar and upright as a practicing Muslim. You remember the story of how he exposed the pilfering of money at Abuja National Mosque. Nigeria needs more people like Oloyede. Nothing lasts forever. Oloyede will bow out as registrar of JAMB after serving his two terms. What is more important is the strengthening of our institutions so that when JAMB gets a new registrar after Oloyede’s tenure, he/she will take JAMB to greater heights.
As for Nigerian universities, clean up your act before requesting for the scrapping of JAMB. When that time comes, it will be obvious to all. For now, let JAMB and Oloyede be. They never said they were infallible. That is why he humbly came to apologise. There are many professors like him who don’t have the humility to acknowledge their wrongs.
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Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), is a man I have enormous respect for. I have not met him personally, but I admire him from afar. That is one of the hallmarks of impactful people. You don’t have to know or have physical encounter with them to feel […]
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, , Emmanuel Okogba, {authorlink},, , Vanguard News, May 17, 2025, 2:50 am
