In our society, it is uncommon for public officials to admit faults, let alone offer a tearful apology, and that seems to explain some of the reactions to the actions of JAMB registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede. We are used to poor leaders scoring themselves high and branding those who ask legitimate questions as “haters”, and so the reaction to Oloyede was either extreme vilification or wild applause. Take, for instance, the University of Nigeria chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities that alleged a conspiracy against their region and threatened to sue JAMB. Even if taking legal action was part of their mandate, one would still have expected them to pose logical questions to JAMB rather than merely bloviate. Their Yoruba counterparts were no better. The management of at least three universities—the University of Ilorin, the Lagos State University and the Federal University of Technology, Akure—jumped out to “stand with” Oloyede. Why? You look at them falling over themselves to provide a moral cover for a tribal compatriot and you see why mediocrity thrives in Nigeria. We are a people of incredibly low standards. To think that these are people training the next generation should make us shudder.

When students fail an examination like the UTME, opinion hawkers are always quick to ascribe the poor performance to a generational shortcoming. They will blame students for not being serious enough and for always being on social media. But when the public official who superintends the examination body fails, they applaud and recommend him for appointments into other public offices!

There are several problems that I identified from the extreme reactions to Oloyede’s admission of failure. One is that Nigeria suffers from a severe institutional trust deficit. Every society has that problem to a degree, but the local strain is so acute that we are easily blinded to reason. Those whose conspiratorial mindset will not let them accept that this could be a sincere mistake on the part of JAMB are ruled by the paranoia that typically afflicts Nigerians when the regional (or religious) blocs they identify with are far from the centres of political power. For every situation that arises, these ones must look for the story behind the story because reality cannot possibly be simple. Those quick to assert their faith in Oloyede do not make things better either. What they do by promoting an individual over the system is overcompensate for a crisis of institutional trust deficit. What is at stake in the JAMB matter goes beyond these petty insecurities.

In a previous article, I had written about JAMB during the Mmesoma Ejikeme debacle, I had mentioned that JAMB needed to understand that the future of millions of young Nigerians is directly tied to its capacities as an organisation and should therefore develop a protocol for responding to controversial issues or public criticisms. In Nigeria, where social mobility is propelled by academic credentials, who or what most of us will become in life has a lot to do with JAMB. You cannot be that pivotal to the destiny of people and afford to be flippant in your responses to those who raise concerns about your operations. In responding to critics (including the petty-minded ones), you can be sensitive to what you represent yet firm and resolute when addressing issues. Instead, JAMB exhibits the smug self-righteousness of an organisation that has allowed the applause of their registrar’s much-vaunted integrity to get into their heads. They seem to imagine every complaint comes from a sore loser.

Oloyede talks about his innovative efforts to reduce the tide of examination malpractices every chance he gets, but hardly ever addresses the question of improving the experience of the candidates. On the 2025 UTME test day, he was interviewed by some journalists. His responses to people who complained about the examination schedule were dismissive. He said the criticisms came from “people who have no job,” with “mob mentality,” and people “making a case out of no case”. He was too arrogant to listen to some of the complaints as the feedback necessary to make the right adjustments. He even compared the 8am examination schedule to the resumption hour on any regular workday. One would think that a whole JAMB registrar would know the difference between going to work as a routine exercise and taking a high-stakes examination.

The trouble with people like Oloyede—and I will join Dr Tunji Alausa, the education minister here—is that they belong to a generation of older people who have an outdated idea of what “standards” entail. Their generation walked five miles to school and tends to think younger people have it too easy. They will not budge when you tell them there is a better way of doing things. For them to make a process easier is to betray some lofty standards of difficulty to which they are undivorceably wedded. It is the mindset of “It was hard for me in my time; it must be hard for you too”. When Alausa heard about this year’s woeful examination results, he concluded that failure was the proof of success. I can bet that the prefabricated idea that the responsibility for failure or success solely rests on the students haunts every review meeting they have in the wake of every examination: the more people fail, the more they are convinced that things are getting better!

Try telling people like Alausa or Oloyede that some brilliant students underperform because they are poor test takers, and they will likely scoff. Not every brilliant person performs under exam conditions, but our society does not understand individual differences enough to be flexible. We think everyone functions the same, and we serially fail to make room for people left behind by the rigidity of the system. It is shaped up, or shaped out. Did they wonder how many of the students who were asked to report at 6.30am failed compared to those who did not arrive at the centres, trying to catch their breath? Instead of asking students to report for an examination at 6.30am, why not let them choose a time slot that might be most convenient for them? Some people do not function well enough at certain times of the day.

Also, why should almost two million people take the examination on the same day? Why not spread it out over a year? The exam can be held quarterly rather than annually. Why should someone who failed because they had a bad day or missed the exam for reasons out of their control wait another year to re-sit? Also, why not let people take the exam more than once and select the best result for their university application? Again, why should the exam’s validity expire after one year? JAMB does not need to be so inflexible.

Finally, I sincerely think Oloyede’s willingness to admit mistakes is commendable. He could have staged a cover-up, and the usual online crowd who have convinced themselves that all it takes for JAMB to run successfully is the integrity of a lone individual would have bleated his infallibility. Even the minister who spoke too soon would have been invested in a cover-up. But Oloyede admitted his errors. In our society, that basic minimum is worth acknowledging. I have never really bought into the whole thing about the man exemplifying integrity, simply because JAMB returns unspent funds to the government. However, for that one moment when he admitted failure, Oloyede modelled public accountability. Now, that is a much better example of personal integrity.