WHEN the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, announced the appointment of 39-year-old Prof. Segun Aina as the new registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board four days ago, it was a major story that immediately went viral. Though the relatively young age of the newly appointed registrar might have been an attraction, considering his academic title and experience, many people agreed that the weight of the news had more to do with the outstanding image that had been created for the hitherto back-seat agency by the young professor’s predecessor, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede.
Aina holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Kent, an MSc in Internet Computing and Network Security, and a PhD in Digital Signal Processing, both from Loughborough University, United Kingdom. He has also completed the Lagos Business School’s senior management programme, according to Onanuga’s statement.
This background, his membership of various engineering professional bodies, and experience with JAMB and other examination bodies, should ordinarily give the comfort that after 10 years of Oloyede, JAMB is still in very safe hands. However, the sterling record of transparency, integrity and mandate delivery performance left by the former registrar, no matter what a few critics may think, goes beyond what just academic profiles and experience in relevant fields can effortlessly break.
Before Oloyede assumed duty as JAMB registrar on August 9, 2016, nothing much was heard about that Federal Government agency, perhaps aside from yearly examination dates. But he made headlines barely one year into his tenure with a whopping N5bn remittance to the Federal Government’s coffers in 2017. That first-of-its-kind remittance, which exposed what many described as past unrestrained stealing in the agency, was the first action that unveiled JAMB as a ‘juicy’ agency to political appointment shoppers.
After this remittance, which became a yearly ritual until he passed on the baton, details emerged that the same JAMB, which did not increase fees or charges, remitted only a paltry N50,752,544 to the Federal Government in seven years, between 2010 and 2016, about one per cent of the N5bn remitted by the Oloyede-led administration in one year!
In fact, according to a document released by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, in response to a Freedom of Information request, while the board remitted N11,522,808 in 2011; N25,303,274 in 2013; and N13,926,462 in 2014, nothing at all was remitted in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016! It was that bad.
If Oloyede, whose daily life, right from his school days, through his various significant leadership positions, has exemplified simplicity, integrity, accountability, and intrepidity, all wrapped under the fear of God, had not been appointed to head the examination body at that time, no one would have ever known that anything as much as that was amiss.
It was this 2017 “unusual” remittance, compared to the ridiculous seven-year record, that triggered the investigation of previous heads of the agency that year.
“Now they (JAMB) have not increased their charges, they have not increased their fees. The question that the Federal Executive Council and council members were asking was: ‘Where was this money before?’” Kemi Adeosun, who was the Minister of Finance at the time, said, after a September 2017 FEC meeting.
Oloyede’s zero tolerance for inefficiency and institutional corruption put everyone on their toes in JAMB and paved the way for the technological advancement that has helped, in no small measure, to ensure that admissions into tertiary institutions are secured by those who actually deserve it. The former registrar, whose pre-JAMB outstanding record as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin has remained a reference point, made JAMB too hot for internal and external fraudsters to operate.
Regardless of whose toes he stepped on, JAMB, under his watch, worked actively with relevant security agencies to apprehend and prosecute erring officials, indicted university staff and external syndicates who had, for many years, engaged in admission racketeering, stolen huge amounts that should have been remitted to the Federal Government and opened the gates of tertiary institutions to largely unqualified candidates.
The board collaborated with the Independent Corrupt and Other Related Offences Commission and the Police Force to secure convictions. Oloyede paid absolutely no lip service to fighting fraud cartels and ridding the system of age-long corrupt practices.
The introduction of the Central Admissions Processing System in 2017, which fully automated the admission process and effectively removed human interference and “under-the-table” admission deals, is one of the key legacies that redefined the activities of the examination body. With CAPS, institutions could only admit candidates who met the cut-off marks and prerequisites on a transparent, digital portal, thereby restoring fairness and merit to the tertiary admission process.
The former VC also supervised the standardisation of Computer-Based Test Centres while maintaining rigorous auditing and accreditation processes that forced CBT centre owners to upgrade their facilities, nationwide, and shun the widespread malpractices that defined the system before then.
Sanity, in due course, returned to the agency and, as officials said, even if you were born of the same parents as Oloyede, he would, in the blink of an eye, send you to jail in the event of any evidence of fraud.
Oloyede led from the front and carried the media and relevant stakeholders strongly along every step of the way, because there was nothing to hide. He transformed JAMB from a revenue-consuming agency to a top ‘revenue-generating’ agency within one year and demonstrated that all that an ailing system needs to unlock the needed resources for growth and save for the rainy day, is the will to block leakages and tame corruption. This is why many analysts have recommended him for greater assignments in sectors that require thorough ‘cleansing’.
While revenue-generating agencies struggled to deliver on their mandates, it is on record that JAMB, under Oloyede, remitted over N57bn to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, a feat that could have been seen as practically impossible before he was appointed.
Before bowing out, the examination body put its 2026 Internally Generated Revenue target at N23.8bn. From this, it hopes to remit N6bn as operating surplus for the year. Fortunately, the system seems automated enough to realise this ambition, barring a weak regulation-induced return to the old ways. How the new registrar is able to resist intimidation and external influence will determine his scorecard in one year.
For now, I wish him a fruitful tenure devoid of scandals, just as I thank the immediate past JAMB registrar for making us particularly proud in Egbaland. He came, he saw, and he not only conquered, but left shoes big enough to scare a successor.
- Dr Kolapo is publisher of The Point and her column, Compass, runs on the back page of the Punch newspaper on Monday. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Tuesday.