Excellence recognised! A new lease of life for JAMB! Those were my immediate reactions last Monday evening (August 1, 2016) on hearing of the appointment of Prof. Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede (OFR) as the Registrar of the beleaguered Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over the nightly NTA network news. An erudite Professor of Arabic and the first ever Unilorin graduate to make a first class degree, Oloyede became a household name during his tenure as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, having largely succeeded in turning the second generation University into a world class institution. This, he achieved by dint of hard work, resilience, consistency, tenacity of purpose and unparalleled team spirit.
With the inconsistency and policy somersault that the central tertiary institutions admission agency has begun to manifest in recent times, keen watchers and analytical observers have started to warn of dire consequences for the nation's education sector if urgent action was not taken to stem the JAMB slide. At first, it was the massive dwindling confidence in the entrance examination – the Universal Tertiary matriculation Examinations (UTME) – conducted by the body. Such was the waning popularity of JAMB that a consensus of opinions is gradually forming on the need to scrap the body and revert the power to admit candidates back to the respective universities! But then this would have meant a big step backwards and a sad reversal of one of the lofty dreams of the founding fathers of this central admission agency – the dream of forging national unity and cohesion through pluralistic admission exercise.
Indeed, no government worth its name would allow such a sad slide. What then is the way out? Look for a credible personage to reverse the glide, of course! And that exactly was what President Muhammadu Buhari did last Monday with the appointment of this tested and trusted hand to head JAMB.
A stickler for discipline and due process, Prof. Oloyede will be bringing his well-known Spartan commitment to set goals to bear on an organisation that critically needs to be salvaged for the benefit of the nation's educational development. Indeed, this is one of the best appointments President Buhari has made so far! Prof. Oloyede is a round peg in a round hole! Congratulations to the man with the Midas touch. I am sure that in no time he will turn around the fortunes of JAMB and reinvent the organisation's fast dwindling glory!
Prof. Oloyede's appointment is a plus for the University of Ilorin, an institution with which he has been affiliated since the past 34 years: as a student, lecturer, deputy vice-chancellor and, ultimately, vice-chancellor! He is a Unilorite through and through. Acknowledged globally as "better by far", the University of Ilorin has a unique spirit - the spirit of consistency; the spirit of excellence; the spirit of discipline; and indeed, the spirit of collective responsibility – that has largely accounted for the University's serial successes in all aspects of the tripartite mandate of an archetypal institution of higher learning. And Prof. Oloyede is one of the harbingers of this positive spirit and a major stakeholder in its blossoming to national and international acclaim. So, in a way, his appointment is an opportunity to avail the nation the benefit of this exemplary spirit, the Unilorin spirit! And from now on, JAMB will not be the same again!
Go, Prof! Go and show the nation the Unilorite stuff you are made of! May the Almighty Allah, whom you serve so dutifully, see you through sir!
...Aina's well-earned appointment
Another Unilorin don, an erudite Professor of Library Science, Lenrie Olatokunbo Aina, was also named, on the same day, the new Head of the National Library of Nigeria. Prof. Aina, who is the immediate past Dean of the University's Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences, is another rare breed of an academic. He is another full-blooded Unilorite in deed and in truth!
Having worked closely with him on the Library and Publications Committee of which I am the Secretary, I can testify to Prof. Aina's erudition and expertise, especially when matters bibliographical are in discourse!
A quite unassuming personality, Prof. Aina is bringing to the National Library of Nigeria over four decades of experience in librarianship. He is another round peg in a round hole and I am sure he will make a positive mark in his new appointment. May the good Lord always be your guide in your new office sir!
