Prof. Oloyede Was Here!

Arguably, one of the best decisions taken by the Muhammadu Buhari administration was the appointment of Professor Ishaq Oloyede as the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), in 2016.

Oloyede’s quiet but efficient imprints on the board demonstrate plainly that where there’s good leadership, progress can be visible without jingles and billboards. We return to this in a bit.

By far the biggest indicators of national dysfunction in Nigeria are public departments and agencies. The carefree and lackadaisical attitude of public sector employees is only surpassed by corruption and a sense of entitlement for dividends of work not done.

Disturbingly, the exceptions are countable on one hand. Thus has the country been taken captive and remains forever a victim of this egregious conduct of its public sector employees. And hardly anyone gets punished.

Governments talk big on reforms while workers undermine the implementation of reforms in secretariats, labour offices and other colourful bureaucratic structures. Unfortunately, they regularly get paid and even enjoy retirement benefits for this national sabotage.

Not even the Service Compact introduced in 2004, which aimed to improve public service delivery by making ministries, departments, and agencies more responsive, efficient, transparent, and citizen-focused, has altered the state of anomie in those places. The stories of many visitors to public offices are more often than not, heavily laced with tears and sorrow.

SERVICOM was introduced midway through the Obasanjo administration as part of reforms in the public service to tackle widespread complaints about ‘poor service delivery, including delays, inefficiency, corruption, lack of accountability, and weak public confidence in government institutions’. The motive was to close the gap between what citizens expect and what public agencies actually deliver.

It contained service charters, complaint mechanisms, and internal monitoring units in government agencies to promote productivity and to enable citizens or customers demand better performance. Suffice it to say these lofty ideals have not become standard practice 22 years after they were introduced.

This was the state of affairs with JAMB, a public agency whose entire aura and visage demand credibility without the resort to a second chance. But even here, the termites of corruption had eaten up the rafter. The nation’s premier gateway to higher education was as rotten as vegetables undermined by a viral infestation.

For most of its 47-year history, Nigerians, especially within the last three decades, have regarded JAMB as not merely an examination body, but a symbol of everything that is wrong with public service in the country. Candidates were trapped in a system where success could be distorted to reflect predetermined outcomes rather than effort.

For good reason, the Board assumed the character of a racketeering body where fraud thrived, and candidates who played by the rules often regretted their ‘naivety’. This was the state of affairs Prof. Oloyede met. An article in the BusinessDay edition of August 13, 2021 stated emphatically: “before Oloyede’s tenure, JAMB was a warehouse of corruption and all shades of malpractices”.

A system flourished in which impersonation was common, “miracle” centres worked hand-in-hand with insiders to manufacture exam scores, and admission processes could be compromised through backdoor arrangements.

In the same period, the board’s finances reflected the opacity of a gambling pool, more than the integrity of an examination body. Claims that the agency had generated only about N52 million in over four decades before Oloyede’s tenure of office must have left even public sector auditors and accountants, despite their usual complicity, confounded.

But Oloyede, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence, has made a good turnaround at JAMB as he did while he as Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin. By significantly eliminating human interventions in the operational processes of the board, including candidates’ registration, writing the exams and getting their results, JAMB has slowly acquired the reputation it lost to a system where public agencies are considered slush funds by those managing them.

Biometric verification has tamed the practice of impersonation, results forgery and admission rackets. Extortion rackets by staff and criminal syndicates have become bad business since 2016, and the public image of JAMB is as it should be.

Oloyede’s arrival in 2016 marked this significant turning point. The reforms that followed were not just administrative changes; they were a response to years of public dissatisfaction with a system many believed had lost its moral compass.

In retrospect, the past failings of JAMB explain why Oloyede’s tenure has been judged so strongly by comparison: he inherited an institution many believed had normalised abnormality, a system that depended on merit without itself being merit-driven.

Oloyede’s reforms focused on technology, with the most important changes being expanded CBT centres and infrastructure, central admission processing system, biometric controls, digital payment systems, and stronger public accountability.

Biometric verification and tighter candidate authentication, including fingerprint-based registration, are measures that have made impersonation and multiple registrations difficult or impossible. The replacement of scratch cards and paper-based processes with e-PINs, USSD registration, e-ticketing, including surveillance of exam centres through CCTV, are real-time developments that public agencies should emulate.

With nostalgia, Oloyede’s appointment became for me, a sweet dream and a reflection of what public service ought to represent. Like all sweet dreams, the biggest scare is waking up to reality. Not a few Nigerians are without the apprehension that an impactful era may come to an end with the exit of Oloyede at JAMB, knowing from experience the penchant for lack of continuity.

If was at JAMB, I d’ leave some graffiti somewhere in beautiful calligraphy: “Prof. Oloyede Was Here!”

The new JAMB Registrar, Prof Segun Aina, has a manual well laid out for consolidation and continuity. He can go on and fix other challenges like exam reliability, candidate support, cyber-security, build on CAPS, CBT, biometric controls, and digital admissions processing, improve trust, and infrastructure.

The foundation has been laid, the blockwork that is resilient and durable must continue. This is wishing Prof. Aina the strength to drive on a good legacy.

– Julius Ogar writes from Utako, Abuja