By Gabriel Atumeyi
Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has said many tertiary institutions still mobilise or award certificates to people who never attended the institutions.
Oloyede spoke at the 2021 Batch “B” pre-mobilisation workshop organised by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on Tuesday in Abuja.
The workshop was attended by representatives of tertiary institutions and other stakeholders.
Oloyede said: “There are many ways that corps members and their collaborators take towards corrupting the system. The longer you stay in this system, the more shocked you are likely to become.
“Many institutions still engage in mobilising or awarding certificates to people who didn’t attend the institutions. You are in a position to know because you run Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) and others. How many of these students are actually your students? Go on the streets of Nigeria and you will see IJMB coaching. These candidates are not supposed to be attending roadside coaching. They are supposed to be in your institutions.
“In Abuja here, you can count 100, and they will publicly put IJMB training. Who are they training? Who are their lecturers? It is just an avenue because they know that they will harvest these children and just bring them to your institutions, give you some money and you will register them for IJMB without any training or classes.”
The registrar added: “Even yesterday (Monday), I got some information that I became dumbfounded, almost losing hope that there is nothing we can do. One gentleman came to me yesterday and he said: ‘What are you doing? You will be fighting; you don’t know what is going on in Nigeria.’
“He told me all this authentication that we are doing is just speaking English. ‘People who are making cool money are making it and they are destroying the education system.’ And I asked him to give me an example. And he told me that there is what they call Familiar Name (FN) that all you need do is to walk to a corrupt officer in any of our examination bodies and when you go there, you say a familiar name.
“If your name is John Bello, they will tell the exam officer and they will look for a John Bello who has written their examination before and simply give a copy of the certificate to you and you will take it. When you write to that examination body, giving that photocopy, they will take it and say it is authentic. Whereas it is in a wrong man’s hand.
“How can you beat that? Unless we are more vigilant, we are more committed and we are angry about desecration. If you are not angry about desecration, you cannot change it. It is so bad.”
NYSC Director General, Brig.-Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim said management of the scheme would sanction erring institutions and officials who attempt to compromise the mobilisation process to serve as deterrent to others.