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JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyode
AS he attains 70 years today, Is-haq Oloyede can look back at his life with pride and the future with hope. Born on October 10, 1954, in the Abeokuta South Local Government Area, Ogun State, Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede has led a chequered life – from academics to administration and religion to politics.
Oloyede entered the national limelight after his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin in 2007. During his five-year tenure at his alma mater, the institution became Nigeria’s preferred destination for university candidates.
Interestingly, his achievement at Ilorin was not a fluke, it gave him the platform for higher national service. This became clear when he took up the gauntlet for another cause: in 2016, the then President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him the Registrar and Chief Executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.
Under him, JAMB has introduced technology, especially the computer-based test, to enhance its operations. Results are quicker; cheats are exposed faster.
JAMB has become a gold mine for the Federal Government. Between 1978 and 2016, JAMB remitted less than N50 million to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the country. In the first year under Oloyede, the agency remitted N7.8 billion. From 2017 to date, it has paid an operating surplus of N30.3 billion to the Federal Government.
According to President Bola Tinubu, JAMB remitted N50 billion to the government’s coffers in one year. In Nigeria, where agencies are regularly accused of corruption, this is a rarity. It led JAMB to reduce its application fee by 30 per cent. This is welcome but critics argue that it is not far-reaching enough. An organisation that can remit an operating surplus of N50 billion in a fiscal year should be able to reduce the application fee by over 50 per cent.
These days, JAMB is known for innovations, including the use of CCTV cameras at CBT centres, the adoption of the National Identity Number by candidates, the scrapping of scratch cards, and the automation of admissions through the introduction of the Central Admissions Processing System.
Oloyede, a 1995 Professor of Islamic Studies, attended the Progressive Institute, Agege, Lagos for his secondary education. He received a certificate in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Ibadan in 1977 and a B.A. in Arabic at the University of Ilorin in 1981. He received his doctorate in Islamic Studies from Ilorin in 1991.
A devout Muslim, Oloyede is a Fellow of the Islamic Academy of Cambridge, United Kingdom; Fellow of the Academy of Entrepreneurship; Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management; Fellow of the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Fellow of the Association of Islamic Religious Studies and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academic of Letters.
Oloyede is reputed for his integrity. He has left a trail of transparency in public service.
In politics, former President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him a Co-Secretary of the National Political Reform Conference in 2006. He was also a member of the 2014 National Political Conference after his appointment by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Although a religious person, Oloyede is a realist. This can be seen in his interventions in national life. Advising Nigerians on the interplay between religion and success, he said, “We are too religious, and we are not that godly. We are in love with prayer, but we don’t know the difference between prayer and hard work.
“Too many prayers without work is part of our problems in Nigeria. Let us make the best use of our endowments.”
For a country that has lost its moral compass, Nigeria can learn solid lessons from Oloyede’s life of service, rectitude, and selflessness. Nigeria needs more Oloyedes and his determination to succeed in daunting assignments without losing focus offers hope for the country’s future.
