Nigeria is taking frightening leaps into the dark. Sectors that once held the pride of the nation seem to be laying down their guard and are now in competition to keep up with the Joneses. Integrity is being sacrificed on the altar of political exigencies. Everyone seems to be joining the rat race. The country is indeed in a state of morass, but who will bell the cat?
INEC’s infamous introduction
When, on February 26, 2023, Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), addressed a crestfallen nation that there had been some glitches in the upload of the presidential election results, little did many people know that the word “glitch” was being permanently etched in the nation’s lexicon, unfortunately.
Yakubu had announced to the bewildered Nigerians that there were some glitches in the process of uploading the results of the presidential election.
“The Commission is aware of the challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IREV). Unlike in off-season elections, where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady.
“The problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season state elections to one for managing nationwide general elections. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations,” Yakubu rationalised.
Billions of naira had been spent, and the Electoral Act 2010 was amended to accommodate developments that were thought would be game-changers in the election.
The INEC had profusely assured Nigerians that results were going to be uploaded in real time electronically, without human interference.
The assurances had boosted the enthusiasm of many Nigerians, even those who had never voted before, particularly among the youth.
Over two years after the faux pas, many Nigerians have continued to look at the INEC chairman with the tail of their eyes.
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Yakubu came from the Ivory Towers, having been head-hunted in October 2015 by the late Muhammadu Buhari as the INEC boss. He was also reappointed in October 2020.
His predecessor, Attahiru Jega, had introduced the use of university professors and other senior faculty as returning officers, in the hope that sanity would be introduced in the nation’s electoral system. But over the years, it would seem that the situation has grown worse.
Observers say that members of the Ivory Towers who were not given to greed but lived within their means have since been compromised big time by politicians, and there has been no looking back.
The corruption that has thus been introduced into the electoral system has made a nonsense of most of the elections being held in Nigeria under Yakubu.
That singular error of “technical glitches” of 2023 may have led to many of the electorate turning their back on INEC and its activities; hence, the growing cases of voter apathy in the country.
JAMB’s offensive copycat
Sadly, these “glitches” have encroached on the external examinations being conducted in the country today.
In May this year, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results with lots of howlers. The nation exploded in anger. A lot of interpretations were given to it.
Some sections of the country alleged that it was a calculated ploy to depopulate their number in the universities across the country.
On May 14, 2025, JAMB Registrar Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede, with teary eyes, admitted technical glitches during an elaborate press conference in Abuja following the nationwide hoopla over the errors in the released results.
Oloyede said, “…the technical personnel deployed by the Service Provider for LAG (Lagos and South-East zones) inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery servers. Regrettably, this oversight went undetected prior to the release of the results.”
His admission of technical glitches took the minds of many Nigerians to the 2023 general election and raised a very concerning issue on glitches and their grave havoc in critical institutions.
In a face-saving gambit, JAMB decided to give an opportunity for those who were affected by the “glitches” to sit for a “make-over”.
For that error, the management of JAMB, which has, over the years, done a great job in handling examinations, particularly under Professor Oloyede as registrar, is today reeling under an integrity question.
WAEC’s Father Christmas gambit
The latest of the glitches, and perhaps the most laughable, occurred in the recently released WASSCE 2025 results.
WAEC had come out to claim that there was a massive failure, as only about 38.3 percent had credits in English Language and Mathematics.
But in what seemed a volte-face, the examination body, in a matter of hours, reversed everything without re-marking the scripts or ordering a fresh examination. In a move that left many Nigerians tongue-tied, WAEC decided to play Father Christmas with marks.
It admitted errors in the earlier released results, saying that 1,239,884 candidates now have credit passes in five subjects or more, including English Language and Mathematics, amounting to 62.96 percent!
“We extend our deep and sincere apologies to all affected candidates and the general public. We appreciate their patience and understanding as we work diligently to resolve this matter with transparency and urgency within the next 24 hours. On this note, candidates who have previously checked their results are advised to re-check 24 hours from now,” the WAEC said in a widely circulated statement.
It was reported during the exams that students were delayed in their schools across several states because the Council failed to deliver the English questions at the appropriate time. Pictures circulated of students writing their exams with the aid of torchlights and candles due to the late-night examination.
The massive allocation of free marks without re-marking the scripts questions the integrity of WAEC and agitated the minds of right-thinking Nigerians, who now ask, “Have we degenerated to that level?”
Concern mounts.
Many of those who have expressed concern over the introduction of glitches in Nigeria’s electoral and educational lexicons now believe that the “glitches” theory may be a fresh rehearsal ahead of 2027.
A concerned Nigerian said, “The unfortunate trend that is emerging in Nigeria is a situation where we hold elections, we don’t get the right results; we conduct examinations, we don’t get the right results. Doctors help women deliver their babies in hospitals and give those babies to the wrong mothers. The biological mothers no longer get their babies. It is racketeering all the way. Things are getting messier.”
