Tag: JAMB

By Fabian Benjamin (Ph.DPCA)

Abuja (Flowerbudnews) The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday 13th January, 2025 appeared before the Joint Committee of both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Finance to defend its 2025 budget proposal, in compliance with statutory requirements.

It is crucial to note that what JAMB on the prompting of the Committee presented was not the 2024 expenditure but solely the 2025 budget proposal, which meant that claims regarding humongous spending in 2024 on meals or fumigation, security and cleaning are totally unfounded.

During this session there was no presentation of any 2024 expenditure of N1.1 billion for feeding or N850 million for fumigation.

Among the items included in the 2025 budget proposal is the provision of one meal per day for the 2,300 staff members (cleaners/security inclusive) of the Board nationwide, covering all working days throughout the year.

Over the past two years, the cost of providing this meal for headquarters staff (on the 2 offices in the Board) was N1, 200 per day, per staff.

However, due to rising food prices, vendors have requested an increase to N2, 200 (including 13.5% taxes). Based on this new price, the total cost for providing meals for 2,300 staff members throughout the working days in 2025 is projected to be N1.27 billion.

Nevertheless, JAMB has budgeted N1.1 billion for this purpose.The initiative to provide meals is a recognition of the sensitive responsibilities of JAMB staff.

To minimize their exposure to the public during working hours and avoid the danger that eating in the offices posed to ICT infrastructure, the management sought and obtained approval to start providing lunch at the Headquarters, with plans to extend this initiative to all the offices nationwide, in response to consistent requests from outstation employees; we plan to commence the initiative to all the 2,300 workers of the Board.

Another significant provision in the budget proposal is the N850 million earmarked for the emolument of outsourced cleaners, security personnel, cleaning materials, fumigation services and tax. In compliance with government policy on outsourcing, JAMB has engaged firms and agencies that provide 386 security personnel and 194 cleaners across its over forty offices and PTC centers nationwide.

The N850 million proposed in the budget proposal covers running and operational costs, with only N2 million specifically earmarked for fumigation services for the year. (It was less than N1million in 2024)

This budget reflects the recent salary review mandated by the government, and it is misleading to suggest that a meaningful portion of the budget is solely dedicated to fumigation when the least paid of the security men earns the minimum pay of N30, 000.00 which is now projected to be N70, 000.00 while cleaners pay would be at least doubled.

This clarification is vital to prevent misinformation in the public space, as the submitted provisions represent a budget proposal rather than expenditures already incurred by the Board in 2024.

All capital, overhead, and operational costs of the Board are met from the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the Board. While the government covers the salaries of only pensionable JAMB staff.

Additionally, clarification is needed regarding the N6.4 billion proposed for “Local Travel and Transport (Training)” for the over 10,500 staff and other officials to be assigned to conduct the 2025 UTME- mock examination and other engagements.

The template provided for Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) mandates that all expenditures peculiar to JAMB be categorized under this heading. The Board is not allowed to create any other heading.

As a Government Owned Enterprise, JAMB is compelled to comply with the Budget Information Management Monitoring System (BIMMS) for GOEs and that explains why the amount was lumped under the heading but with asterisk and details provided on the succeeding page of the submission which the Board was disallowed to explain.

JAMB remains committed to managing its resources prudently, aligning with the requirements and expectations of the nation’s leadership.

(Fabian Benjamin, Ph.DPCA, is a Director in JAMB)

Mr Yisa Usman, a former Deputy Director in Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has filed a N12.5 million fundamental rights enforcement suit against the Inspector-General (I-G) of Police, Kayode Egbetokun; Mabel Ishaku and others.

Usman, in a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1518/2024 and filed by his lawyer, Oseini Bamigbaiye, sued I-G; AIG Zone 7; DCP Kabiru Shehu and Mabel Ishaku, also a police officer, as 1st to 4th defendants respectively.

The applicant, who was dismissed from the employment of JAMB, is currently contending his disengagement at the National Industrial Court in suit number: NICN/ABJ/266/2023.

In the originating motion dated Oct. 14 and filed Oct. 15 at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Usman sought six reliefs.

He prayed the court to declare that the statements made by him in his letter dated June 6, 2022, and addressed to the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, in paragraph 2 of page 15 was within his rights of expression and opinion .

This, he said, is guaranteed under Section 39 of the constitution, and within his right under the Freedom of Information Act.

He sought a declaration that the statements he made in his letter to Oloyede in respect of Ishaku, “being the exact narrative of what actually happened, is true and is therefore not defamatory, not injurious falsehood and therefore not criminal.”

He also sought a declaration that the statements he made in the letter, not being criminal in any way, is purely personal to Ishaku and purely a civil matter and not for the intervention of the 1st to 3rd respondents.
Usman, therefore, sought an order, restraining the respondents, either by themselves or through their agents, from inviting, arresting, detaining, harassing, embarrassing, intimidating, hunting or further infringing on any of his fundamental rights.
He sought an order awarding damages in the sum of N10 million against the 4th respondent (Ishaku), for deliberately and wickedly setting up, instigating and sponsoring an unlawful and illegal machinery for the unwarranted infringement of his fundamental rights guaranteed under the 1999 (as amended).
He said the act had caused untold hardship, emotional and psychological trauma, reputational damages restriction to his personal liberty and that of his elder brother and demeaning embarrassments to their human dignity .
The ex-director sought an order awarding the sum of N2.5 million as the cost of instituting and prosecuting the suit.
In his 12-ground argument, Usman averred that when he was in the employment of JAMB as deputy director, he wrote a letter on June 6, 2022, addressed to JAMB registrar in which he complained about some infractions in the management of the board.
He said in paragraph of page 15 of the letter, he narrated an happening involving Ishaku (4th defendant).
He said Ishaku wrote a petition against him to the office of the I-G, complaining that the statements made by him in the said letter as it relates to her was defamatory and injuriously false.
He said she then demanded an apology and compensation in the sum of N5 million or be prosecuted.
He said the DCP Shehu, on behalf of the AIG Zone 7, wrote a letter dated April 19, 2023 to his (Usman’s) employer requesting for his release to honour their invitation to answer to an allegation of defamation of character and injurious falsehood in which he featured prominently.
Usman said he honoured the invitation and was interviewed.
According to him, he was compelled to write a statement in the absence of his lawyer, and was only lucky to have been granted bail after fulfilling the bail condition.
He said he attended several other invitations at the instance of Shehu and Ishaku before the matter fizzled out, until he was recently asked to appear on a Friday for further interrogation.
“The applicant was dismissed by the management of JAMB and the issue of the alleged defamatory statement and injurious falsehood alleged by the 4th respondent was one of the queries that form the basis of his dismissal.
“The applicant is also facing criminal charges at the Federal High Court, Abuja and one of the charges is that he wrote frivolous petitions against the registrar of JAMB,” he alleged.
Usman averred that the 1st to 4th respondents had now decided to use their power to resuscitate Ishaku’s petition against him, and hereby inviting him over to their office for further interrogations claiming that the case was never closed and that a new man on the saddle had decided to reopen the case.
“That the 1st to 4th respondents will use their powers and office to embarrass, harass, intimidate and frustrate the applicant from prosecuting his action in suit at the National Industrial Court in suit no. NICN.ABJ/266/2023 challenging his dismissal from the employment of the Board,” he alleged.
He said his statements in June 6, 2022 letter which were alleged to be defamatory and injurious falsehood were narrations of truth and events that actually happened and that no one had denied them.

He said the statement was expressed in the exercise of his fundamental human right of freedom of speech , freedom of opinion guaranteed under the constitution, the exercise of his rights and performance of his duties as a deputy director in the agency, and under the Freedom of Information Act.
The suit is yet to be assigned to a judge.

By Tunde Akanni (PhD)

By the time the strong-willed, former Education Minister in the President Olusegun Obasanjo government, Oby Ezekwesili, lent her voice to the controversial JAMB result forgery saga involving a minor from Anambra State, I concluded that Nigeria was in for a most interesting time.

The ‘steely’ character had argued that JAMB, rather than the minor involved, fell short of her expectations. Apparently on account of her supposedly respectable profile including being a pastor of the renowned Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, many Nigerians seemed to believe Ezekwesili.

Meanwhile, not many of the former minister’s adherents realized that the far tougher element in JAMB Registrar Oloyede would make Ezekwesili bend or make a full turnaround having failed to access the truth readily available to her from JAMB.

Oloyede earned the credit of upping the ante at the board to clearly make it the most technologically trendy Federal Government board in the education sector.

It was Ezekwesili’s second grand failure after the botched attempt to sell off all the Unity Schools while in office as education minister. Although Oloyede did not reckon with what may appear as a grand conspiracy by Ezekwesili as someone who should know better, it was yet another reinforcing experience cultivated from his first year as the JAMB Registrar.

The former Vice-Chancellor of the Better By Far University of Ilorin damned the landlocked location of his university to emerge as the most digitech friendly of all times in Nigeria.

The visionary was precocious in spotting possible opportunities that should accompany the rather nascent deregulated telecommunication sector. Promptly, he sought to use it to buoy, at least, the testing capacity of the university. Consequently, UNILORIN, under Prof Oloyede perfected the unprecedentedly massive deployment of computer based tests in the early years of undergraduates in that university.

The story of what had been perfected at UNILORIN not only became the talk of the town but one that also emerged as a worthy study for test and evaluation scholars and experts from far and near. JAMB, under Prof Dibu Ojerinde, moved into UNILORIN for a comprehensive learning of the details.

Thus evolved CBT test for JAMB even as it had to combine that with the paper based test for a few years.Fate event…ually did it. Fate did it for JAMB, literally the entire nation. The experiment that began from Better By Far University bourgeoned and later yielded heavily for the nation at large. In 2017, the CBT maestro was appointed as the registrar of JAMB.

No time to feel complacent at JAMB in spite of the fulfilling trajectory. For Oloyede, like many scholars of digitech would wish to postulate and demonstrate, internet as a strand of it should be technology of freedom with limitless capacity to disrupt age old traditions and practice. Indeed, enthroning new experiences serially is the vision of the new sheriff in town.

Even as IT experts at JAMB and others he keeps attracting to the self-conceived tasks with no less adventurous spirit may be trying to perfect some contraptions, relentless Oloyede would soon throw up another and even another such that even the ultra-talented ones among the IT folks have always wondered on how best to earn Oloyede’s full marks.

Right in Oloyede’s first year JAMB, he raised the bar. Mock exam would commence but would be optional. All eyes were therefore on JAMB as the news hit the town. Unknown to the leader with uncommon carrying capacity, saboteurs had been insistent on marring the novel layer of exam.

It was time to test run the facility for the proposed CBT mock exam and it was discovered that it was far from possible. Naysayers had dug so deeply into the IT facility that the only option was to postpone the exam. Oloyede that had extracted and re-extracted what seemed like sincere and infallible assurances suddenly became taciturn!

However, like Prof Attahiru Jega, the ultra-credible, firebrand, former ASUU leader who later became the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Oloyede had to settle for a humble pie in the face of insurmountable situation.

Jega had postponed a national election against all expectation of the electorate and the international community and heaven did not fall. Why not an Oloyede? Oloyede therefore announced the mock exam would be shifted without boring the public with unnecessary details. But there was no sparing any energy again.

He extended his overture to the best IT folks in town including some hired to service some World Bank projects. He wanted the best available. Eventually, both the mock exam and the main exam held successfully.Yet, the JAMB chief examiner was no one to be caught napping in relation to the rule of law.

He carried over the transparency campaign he had initiated at the University of Ilorin. Like UNILORIN, JAMB being a public institution, Prof Oloyede believed, must be subjected to surrender value by promptly rendering reports of its activities, including financials, every blessed week.

Then came a big story which ended up being echoed by virtually all worthy news platforms in the country. JAMB returned N5billion Naira being the excess of the earnings from the sales of forms and allied services. It was unprecedented. Indeed, it exceeded all of the returns ever turned in since the inception of the board.

Transparency at JAMB had, under the inimitable Oloyede come to set a new standard for the country. Tongues wagged ceaselessly. Salutations by the young and old patriots went viral across social media platforms. Many began to wonder loudly on the need to query past JAMB leadership.

For Oloyede, it was not about personal pride but simply expressive of his life as a responsible academic with towering standing who is also a muslim, if you like a responsible family man and community leader. Oloyede till date is the Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.

It should also interest us to note here that, together with Bishop Father Kukah representing the Christian community, Oloyede co-secretary of the National Conference set up by the President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.Participating in the conference for Oloyede was obviously neither mere jawjaw nor some cheap opportunity for self-enrichment.

Everyone should be able to walk their talk. Rather than allow himself to get soaked in the eulogies resultant from the N5billion returns, Oloyede forged ahead to strengthen JAMB as institution that should be able to weather unpredictable failings such as had undermined the maiden mock exam and some other processes of the Board.

Interestingly, Oloyede’s consistent insistence on either the best or nothing mantra has never taken away anything from his team-player compliance even as he makes efforts to fulfil diverse civilizational aspirations.

Beginning with the very first examination he conducted in 2017, he democratized the entire process ensuring gender balancing as well with invigilators and other exam officials duly recruited from all relevant spheres. Not given to playing any petty god in any context, he literally elevated your’s sincerely and others to the level of ‘Registrar-in-Council’. Membership of my team, (subject to annual rejig on merit) was to avail him standby back-up for the entire duration of exam annually.

A team of tested scholars and highly experienced administrators, no fewer than six of that team had served or currently serving as Vice-Chancellors, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Registrars, Deputy Registrars of Nigeria’s leading universities around the country.

My team, till date(most delighted to have been signed on for the 2024 exam as I write) is always saddled with the responsibility of maintaining minute-by-minute contact with all centres nationwide and expected to update the registrar on the wellness or otherwise of the conduct of the examination. And we’re always delightfully equipped to achieve that.

The said Registrar-in-Council, like the boss of the board has no closing time especially on challenging days and day one and day two of exams must be deemed so annually even as we are often pleasantly surprised. No year again has presented any extremely tasking experience as that of of 2017 when we had to work all-night!

Although all efforts are often mustered to ensure zero hitch, my team routinely lives the Boys Scout motto of “Be Prepared” to stall any eventuality that may result from the Shakespearian proclamation that “Since the hope of man hangs in the balance, let’s reason with the worst”.

For JAMB however, the sturdy Septuagenarian with the energy of a young groom, Professor Is’haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, has been leading his team from glory to greater glory. Best wishes always sir.

About Flowerbudnews

Established by Hon.  Biola Lawal, a former Acting Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Flowerbudnews is a consortium of active journalists, media veterans and image makers in both public and private sectors of Nigeria’s media Industry determined to enhance the practice of responsible journalism.

Lawal, on his part, is also a former Honourable Commissioner for Information,Youth, Sports and Culture of Osun state, his home state.

Biola Lawal had also successfully served two tenures as Press Secretary to the ECOMOG Force Commander in Liberia during the Liberian and Sierra Leone Civil wars.

Lawal holds the honour of being the only journalist that served two terms on the ECOMOG international assignment due to his high professionalism and decency)

THE Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, on Wednesday in Ilorin advised African nations to guard against reliance on overseas-developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.

Oloyede gave this advice in his presentation at the University of Ilorin (Unilorin) Lecture Series, titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanities”.

The Registrar, who is a former Vice-Chancellor of Unilorin, also cautioned those in the academics who lack adequate knowledge about their subjects against adopting AI.

”Avoid doing this in the quest to seek solution about your subjects. so as not to be mislead,” he said.

Oloyede however allayed the fears that AI would replace humanity, pointing out that the technology has come to stay.

He however maintained that humanity should be in control of AI “if we will save humanity from perdition”.

“African nations need to invest in building their own AI capabilities, so that they will not be entirely dependent on external powers.

“By being part of AI’s global development, they can ensure that they are not exploited or left out of future.

“The African Telecocommunication Unions (ATU), African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Smart Africa must lead the charge in developing AI strategies tailored to the continent’s specific needs,” the JAMB Registrar added.

Oloyede observed that these bodies listed should promote policies that encourage the ethical development and use of AI across sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education and governance.

He advocated that a collaboration between African countries on AI research and data sharing can help mitigate the risk of relying on overseas-developed AI technologies.

Oloyede, who is a professor of Islamic Studies, tasked scholars in the discipline to take up the challenge of generating content for AI.

He said this would help to ensure that its contents conform with fundamental human rights, values and Islamic doctrines and principles.

“In fields like Islamic Studies and Law, AI must be developed with sensitivity to ethical and cultural contexts.

“Universities and scholars should explore how AI can assist in complex tasks like issuing ‘fatwahs’ or navigating legal ethics, while ensuring that AI aligns with fundamental human rights values,” the professor said.
(NAN)

By Flowerbudnews

No fewer than 61 visually-impaired candidates have sat for the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organised by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Enugu Special Centre.

The visually-impaired and other special candidates are part of the 577 others writing the examination nationwide under the JAMB Equal Opportunity Group (JEOG) Committee.

The examination, holding at the Law Faculty of University of Nigeria Enugu Campus (UNEC), had candidates drawn from nine states of South-East and South-South regions, namely: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo as well as Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States.

The candidates were writing with all sorts of writing aides, such as brailles, typewriters, stylos while some others wrote with pens.

Speaking, the Coordinator of the UTME Enugu Special Centre, Prof. Mosto Onuoha, explained that JAMB had introduced the visually-impaired UTME programme to give people with special needs equal opportunity to achieve their dreams of going to higher institutions of learning.

Onuoha, who is a former Deputy Vice Chancellor, UNN, and former President of Nigeria Academy of Science, said: “What is important is that JAMB recognises that people should have opportunities especially the physically challenged.

“This is a different kind of exam because they cannot do Computer-Based Test (CBT).

“We read the questions aloud for them and they pick answer options. They provide the answers. The only difference is that we extend their time for them”.

Another member of the JEOG Committee and Provost, Federal College of Education (Technical), Isu, Ebonyi State, Prof. Okey Okechukwu, disclosed that in order to encourage and motivate the candidates, JAMB took care of their transportation, feeding and accommodation.

“For the past three days, the special needs candidates and their guides have been take care of free-of-charge. They will depart to their various states on Wednesday,” Okechukwu said.

He used the opportunity to call on the governors of the South-East and South-South, the local government areas chairmen and traditional rulers to create awareness among people with disabilities to enable them access services of the JAMB.

According to him, with adequate awareness especially to parents of disabled persons, more candidates will be motivated to sit for the JAMB examinations.

“I am using this opportunity to appeal to the governors in the regions to create awareness so that many parents will get to know this kind of arrangement JAMB has put in place to encourage and motivate them, so that we get more candidates in future”, Okechukwu said.

A candidate, Mr Obinna Eze, appreciated the special opportunity and treatment JAMB management is giving all physically challenged especially the visually-impaired.

Eze noted that the JEOG committee members treated them with special care and gave due attention to their needs before and during the examination.