Oloyede: When Truck Pushers Can’t Direct Pilot

As a prefatory remark, I have never met the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is’haq Oloyede, in person. However, I have been impressed by his first-rate performance in the public sector, especially in JAMB after his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2016. His emergence as the registrar has increased public confidence in the exam body, following the deployment of modern information technology for enhanced speed and integrity.

Before his appointment, the Kwara-born professor of Islamic Studies, Professor Adedibu Ojerinde was in charge. It was only after Oloyede’s appointment in 2016 that Nigerians got the opportunity of seeing through the financial crisis of JAMB. Ojerinde would eventually be sued over alleged N5 billion fraud, but got a reprieve in 2021 through a bail. Since his appointment in 2016, Oloyede has remitted over N60 billion into the government’s coffers, thus exposing the elephantine corruption that was suffocating JAMB. If the current management of the examination body could achieve such a feat, some people have asked, what happened to the money generated by the previous management under Ojerinde?

Depressing Past

After JAMB’s remittance of N7.8 billion to the federal government in 2017, the then Buhari-led government wasted no time to inaugurate a forensic probe on the board’s financial management under Ojerinde whose tenure as boss of JAMB was alleged to be fraught with financial rot that is still a subject of ongoing legal fireworks. There’s no doubt that as JAMB registrar, Oloyede has refused to be compromised by those who have found in JAMB a safe haven for financial scam through “contractocracy” in an open demonstration of dishonesty.

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JAMB’s past before Oloyede was the story of gross under-performance characterised with inefficiency made worse by financial deception. The depressing past of JAMB was only saved by the timely appointment of Oloyede whose performance injected hope through the deployment of modern information technology to provide solutions to many of its challenges. Oloyede’s headship has considerably helped in putting universities and other tertiary schools in check regarding admissions in a country where public sector workers have turned the Ivory Towers and other tertiary schools into commercial ventures.

Brigades Of Critics

The technical glitches that undermined the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), majorly in the five South East states, proved a defining moment for the board. A storm of criticism had ripped across the country, leading to outright condemnation. Despite an apology delivered in tears by Oloyede, his critics described his tears as that of a crocodile, as they insisted that nothing short of outright resignation was the only option.

In a country where professors have supervised the swelling of electoral votes from polling units to collation centres, the conduct of Oloyede who owned up to a fault that was not of his making, stretching the argument for his resignation amounts to allowing the uninformed to add their jaundiced views in a matter that is far above their comprehension.

University dons and the Parent-Teacher Association have been at the forefront of calling for the resignation of the registrar. Those calling for Oloyede’s exit are either cripplingly ignorant of the undercurrent in understanding what technical glitches mean to an agency like JAMB or simply mischievous. In an age where universities are craving for freedom to take complete charge, including admissions, Oloyede’s resignation could serve as a staircase to enthroning unbridled corruption in the admission exercise.

Rejecting calls by self-serving critics for his resignation, Oloyede has overruled them on the fact that “truck pushers cannot direct pilots”. What a fitting and an apt description of what should not be allowed to be. As boss of JAMB, he knows the problem and cannot afford to throw in the towel when it matters the most to resolve the problem. He has owned up and gone ahead to proffer solutions. That should pacify those agitating for his resignation.

Oloyede Must Be

The registrar’s handling of the recent problems associated with the conduct of the 2025 UTME is commendable. That he personally apologised and owned up to some of the problems that plagued the conduct of the examination showed his humility and deep appreciation of the problems.

This is the first time a public servant is apologising over the failure of an institution to deliver on its mandate. Such a phenomenon only happens in foreign countries where the level of public accountability by officials is high and uncompromising. Oloyede’s swift handling of the problems should serve as a template for Nigerian leaders to always own up to inherent weaknesses and seek for ways to remedy the problems.

As it stands, some universities and critics of Professor Oloyede would rather have JAMB scrapped to allow them an unfettered opportunity to make obscene fortunes from admission seekers. Under the registrar, JAMB has become the admission regulator that has remained impartial in ensuring admissions are done in accordance with the rules. If Oloyede had succumbed to pressure to resign from these truck pushers of advisers, it would have amounted to victory for some of the corrupt-infested tertiary schools that are out to frustrate strict adherence to admission policies as administered by JAMB.

Oloyede has so far acted honourably within the provisions of the law and succeeded in doing what no public official has done. Those who seek Oloyede’s resignation are only waging a war to return JAMB to its dark past where inefficiency and unbridled corruption were once the operating system. These dark forces must not be allowed to have their way!