Performance-wise, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the body in charge of conducting qualifying examinations into Nigerian universities and polytechnics, has so improved in the past three years that it holds out lessons for other public sector operators and institutions.
Besides an impressive improvement in the method of conducting its examinations which, before now, was a mess, the board has also raised the bar in its revenue generation. And this is quite significant.
Between 2010 and 2016, the board which was set up in 1978, remitted only N50 million to the federal government coffers, but in just two years (2017 and 2018), under a new management, it has been able to remit N15.6 billion to the federal purse.
Similarly, before now, JAMB was a nightmare to all young Nigerians wishing to enter the universities and polytechnics through its qualifying examinations. JAMB exams usually began from the long, tortuous and tasking paper work (filling forms) that made near-impossible demands from the candidates.
The examination proper was a whole lot of drudgery. Question papers were served along with answer sheets containing tiny boxes arranged with the first five letters of the alphabets as optional answers to choose from. A candidate’s success or failure in the exams started from here.
But the introduction of technology into JAMB operations has changed all that. In particular, the use of computer-based tests (CBT) in place of the voluminous paper work has changed the narrative for both the candidates and the examining body.
Though challenges remain, given the Nigerian environment, JAMB and its current management should be commended for the phenomenal change and improvement that they have brought into public service.
What Nigeria and Nigerians have seen from JAMB in the last couple of years simply underpins what are possible in Nigeria under right and committed leadership.
Their actions uphold and refuel the belief in most quarters that Nigeria’s problems do not consist in lack of ideas or the manpower/know-how, but centrally in lack of the right leadership to provided right, purpose-driven and result-oriented direction.
Like most other Nigerians, we are quite excited by the leadership that Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, has provided in the examination body that accounts for this, comparatively, superlative improvement in the fortunes of the board.
Oloyede is just an Islamic scholar and a Professor of Islamic and Arabic studies. He is a fully ‘home grown’ scholar with all his major academics achievements from the University of Ibadan; not Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, or Yale, meaning that the Hood does not always make the Monk.
What makes the Monk, in our view, especially in the case of Oloyede, his integrity, strength of character, visionary leadership and forthrightness which are glaringly lacking in Nigerian public service.
Oloyede’s activities, since taking over the leadership of JAMB, have been revolutionary and ingenious. As a leader, he has been exemplary and the difference he has made has been phenomenon.
His strides so far are uncommon and it was pleasantly surprising when he revealed recently at his 2020 budget defence at the National Assembly that JAMB is now fully self-funded, taking care of its capital expenditures and overheads.
Added to that, the body is also remitting N3 billion to federation account besides another N2 billion which the government has approved for their capital projects. All these come from the body’s internally generated revenues in 2019 only.
Considering that it is the same staff of the exam body that Oloyede is still working with, it becomes easy to see what competent leadership can achieve. What he has been able to do in three years and how he has been able to do them are strong lessons all should learn from there, especially public and political office holders at all levels – federal, state and local governments.
The professor has brought his personality, integrity and character to bear on the organisation he heads such that the same old staff members have realised that a new sheriff is in town; not a pretender.
Again, he has not sat back to blame the mess he met on ground on the old leadership of the exam body as it is the fashion in the macrocosm called Nigeria where old sheriffs, demagogues, ethno-religious bigots are presiding and blaming all their failings on the long ago and far away.
It is our opinion, and we hold it strong, that all of them in public service, without exception, should learn from JAMB and its leadership the lessons of integrity and commitment. That is new Nigeria spirit.
