JAMB: Beyond a Border Brush of the Blunder

By Bala Ibrahim

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, the body that is saddled with the responsibility of determining the matriculation requirements and conducting examinations leading to undergraduate admissions, as well as for admissions to National Diploma and the Nigerian Certificate in Education courses, has admitted openly, of making errors, in the conduct of exams, which affected the performance of students during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME. At a press conference in Abuja last Wednesday, the registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, broke down in tears while apologising for the errors in the UTME results. He went on to say that, the affected students would rewrite the exams, while as the head of the examination body, he took full responsibility for the negligence of its staff which led to the errors.

By my own assessment of the situation, I gave him a thumbs up for that courageous and commendable action. And I wrote an article applauding him for the apology. This is so because, he acted in a manner that is contrary to the tradition of some of our leaders. If such a thing were to happen under the watch of some leaders, rather than being honest and accepting the mistakes, they would engage the services of my colleagues in the fourth realm of the estate, to do what is called, a media spin of the situation. The spin doctors would manipulate the information to create the specific narrative desired by the registrar, which may be deceptive or of biased intent.

Like lawyers, who, when it comes to the defence of clients, would hide under the guise of Human rights, to give the accused a cover, regardless of the nature of the offense, journalists are also challenged by the burden of where to stand, between a propagandist and a Public Relations Officer. The propagandist is the spin doctor, who changes the narratives for a purpose, while the Public Relations officer focuses on building genuine relationships, maintaining transparency, and establishing credibility. By the demonstrated action of Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, methinks, he was rightly advised by a good Public Relations Officer, and he acted according to the dictates of his good conscience. Hence, the resolve to apologize.

But in life, there are complexities in almost all situations, such that give way to the famous idiom, “there are two sides to every coin”. The simple meaning of the idiom is that, there are multiple perspectives or different ways of looking at the same situation, and suggests that one should consider all viewpoints before forming an opinion. If someone is accused of making a mistake, there are two sides: the perspective of the victim and the perspective of the accused. Both have valid points, and a full understanding of the situation requires considering both. Some may choose to accept the mistake and apologize. Some may rather go arrogant and damn the consequences. But the human in us, would make us judgemental in the actions of both.

It is as a result of this inevitable human character, that Professor Ishaq’s acceptance of responsibility, and his eventual apology are receiving conflicting reactions. While some are commending him for the courage and compassion, some are calling for his head. The National Association of Nigerian Students on thursday called for his resignation. In a statement released by its National Public Relations Officer, Samson Adeyemi, NANS described the errors as a “damning indictment of the institution’s incompetence.” That is their own perspective. On the hand, I wrote to commend him for being sympathetic and showing concern for the sufferings of others. That also, is my own perspective.

Another perspective is coming from a brother of mine, whose position is being circulated via a viral audio on the social media. And he is coming from the position of a deliberate attempt, to undermine the northern part of Nigeria. Through the manipulation of Exams he said, JAMB is being used to weaken, damage, or destabilize the north. He said long before now, the north has been incapacitated politically. It has been incapacitated economically. And the new trend is to incapacitate it educationally. Why should the retake be limited to the south only?

By the submission of JAMB, through the apology of Professor Ishaq, the board has decided that all candidates affected in 157 out of 882 centers will be contacted to retake their examinations, starting Friday, 16 May. A total of 379,997 candidates across the 157 centers in Lagos and the South-east would retake the examinations. Now, my brother is saying, since the board has admitted error in the system, why select to correct only the error of a segment of the system, and not the whole system? Doing that is akin to doing injustice to some segments, because the system had proven that it is prone to errors, at least at segmental level. That is his own perspective.

And this perspective has the backing of a law- the law of systemic analysis, which says, when a segment of a system is bad, the whole system is bad. The ambition of the law is to make us understand and solve problems by examining the interconnectedness of all components within a system. It’s a problem-solving technique that analyzes how different parts of a system interact to achieve a common goal. If JAMB admits that the students in the south have been technically shortchanged by machine malfunction, what proof have they that such malfunction might not have happened in the north, though undetected? Since southern segment was bad, the law of systemic analysis is saying the northern segment should also be presumed bad, until proven otherwise. So JAMB should expand the correction, beyond a brush border of the blunder. It should be holistic. Period.