Saturday 29 April 2017

Group Wants Police To Investigate ASUU Over JAMB’s Website



A group, Concerned Stakeholders in Education and Governance have urged the police authority to immediately investigate officials of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) to ascertain if its members have anything to do with the hacking of the JAMB website.

In a statement jointly signed by President of the group, Bala Kuta and its Secretary General, Silas Awulu, the Stakeholders cited the statement credited to Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) University of Ibadan Chapter, Dr Deji Omole who called for the sack of the Registrar of JAMB and scrapping of the Board.

Kuta said the Concerned Stakeholders see Dr Omole’s tirade against JAMB and its Registrar as part of a larger orchestration to sabotage the admission process to favour the syndicates that some dubious lecturers, who are no doubt ASUU members, use for populating the nation’s higher institutions with mediocre candidates.

He said, “We also demand that the Police should further probe the hackers of the JAMB website to see if there is any nexus between the criminals and members of ASUU, University of Ibadan that they can go any length to destroy Professor Oloyede and his good reforms for Nigeria.”

He said further, “recall that the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) arrested five suspects in this regard. We think that it is no coincidence that some of these suspects were arrested in Oyo state, where Dr Omole is based, in addition to the others caught in Ogun and Borno state.”

According to him, the resort to this kind of tactics simply to get back at the Chief Executive of a government agency simply on a quest to even scores is a confirmation that ASUU has lost touch with contemporary realities in the education.

He said, ASUU members had focused so much on the perennial demand for increase in their wages whilst leaving the welfare and quality of education to the dogs that they cannot appreciate trends in education.

He said, “Even as it tries to remove the speck from another’s eye, in the ultimate insult to Nigerians, ASUU has refused to address the numerous cases of cultism, examination malpractice and sexual abuses perpetrated by its members on Nigerian campuses.

“It is therefore ridiculous that it has appointed itself into a tribunal over the Governing Board of JAMB.

We therefore call on the University of Ibadan Chapter of ASUU and Dr Omole to apologize to Nigerians for calling for the scrapping of JAMB”.


While also carpeting a group, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) which claimed that JAMB is ill prepared for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination(UTME), Kuta said from its investigations, the board is more than equipped and prepared to carry out the examination.

Sunday 23 April 2017

ASUU's Mindless Attacks On Oloyede Led JAMB



By Moses Agwu

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has somehow managed to take time off churning out half-baked graduates as it savages the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) over reported failings in the mock test scheduled by the examination body. Its angst has nothing to do with the glitches that were caught in the test run of a new system being put in place by JAMB but rather has more to do with a long running animosity against the agency's current leadership and a desperation to maintain a status quo that has not done the country's tertiary education any good.
The union's chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter, Dr. Deji Omole, alternated between demanding the scrapping of JAMB and calling for the resignation of its Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede. In other moments of frothing rage, Omole asked the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu to call Oloyede to order.
As if to remove any doubts as to the quality of teachers that Nigeria relies on to train our youths, the ASUU Chairman betrayed the deficit in the analytic skills of his likes and co-travellers by suggesting that JAMB was exploiting prospective  candidates when in actual fact the entire cost of the entrance examination is way below the amount that ASUU members charge for one set of printed substandard study material.  
Omole's tirade also exposed and confirmed a fact that many Nigerians had expressed concerns about severally. It is the fact that our so called citadel of learning have nothing to show by way of innovation and ASUU's kick against the digitization of the registration of students aspiring to be undergraduate clearly proves that its members would rather keep the entire country in the era of paper, ruler and thick back notebooks for registration, which is not only retrogressive but opens the pathway for manipulation and corruption. 
The anger against  the computerization of the entire process therefore apparently has more to do with anger about growing efficiency in tracking the number and performance of students that eventually get admitted as opposed to the past when schools and ASUU members conspired under different guise to scheme out those that pass the Unified Matriculation Examination (UMTE). Admissions were in that dark era usually based on some funny criteria that have no bearing on performance. In such instances, it was not unusual to hear of "(ASUU) chairman's list" that was usually populated by persons that have parted with thousands of naira in bribe to their would be lecturers to secure admission.
It is apparent that even as supposed academics and educationists, ASUU members caught up with news about the mock examination from the media. It is gratifying that members of this union still retained the capacity to read news and catch up with events in the real world as opposed to the utopic fantasies of perfection they have woven for themselves in the various citadel. The leadership of ASUU must have therefore also seen in the news how the police apprehended its members with firearms and how they are implicated in promoting cultism and campus gangs that have killed several undergraduates. They must read how their colleagues have graduated from cash for marks to salacious sex for marks. The news space and national discourse are replete with the harrowing experience of having to deal with the unemployable graduates that are being churned out while ASUU hunts for rats in a burning hut. 
If they as much as appreciate the national imperative of reforming our education system in a bottom-up approach, they will understand that the changes that Professor Oloyede is implementing in JAMB are in national interest. The mock examination, in case the lecturers'union has forgotten, is meant to build candidates'confidence ahead of the real deal – it was a system in place in the heydays before the current crop of jobbers messed up the tutelage process with intractable strikes that achieved nothing.
We must as a nation free ourselves from the tyranny of vocal minorities like ASUU who raise dins each time they sense groundbreaking reform is afoot simply because they know such change would block the loopholes they exploit to game the system. Professor Oloyede must in the interest of the rest of us refuse to succumb to the blackmail of these charlatans that have made a career of holding the rest of us hostage.


Agwu is a public affairs commentator and contributed this piece from Lagos.

Successful Prosecution Of War Against Insurgency By Military Earns PMB Second Term Endorsement



Following the success of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in eliminating the Boko Haram insurgency as well as suppressing other forms of terrorism across the country, a Civil Society Organisations, the National Coalition of Patriots for Positive Change has endorsed the President for a second term in office.

The group said the country at this point is in dire need of peace and stability as it moves on with its economic recovery process. It said besides, the administration of President Buhari has also done extremely well in other critical areas of the economy that has earned Nigeria commendations from wide and far.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Sunday, President of the group, Charles Mbani and it's Secretary General, Israel Akindele said    President Buhari has indeed fulfilled his campaign promises of defeating Boko Haram to Nigerians in two years of his administration.

In his address, Mbani urged Buhari to seek a second term in office, not just to consolidate on his developmental agenda, but to ensure that never again in our history as a nation would we be held ransom by insurgents and terrorist.

Mbani said said Boko Haram insurgents were in control of over 20 local government areas in Borno state North-East Nigeria when Buhari took over the mantle of the country's leadership

He said, "Today, no local government area in Borno state is under the control of Boko Haram insurgents. This is indeed a testament to the commitment of President Muhammdu Buhari to the Nigerian cause. He has indeed matched words with action.

"Also, the Nigerian Military has reclaimed its pride of place on the continent of Africa evident in the commendations received so far. This was made possible by the quality of service chiefs appointed by President Muhammdu Buhari upon the assumption of office. The morale of officers and men of the Nigerian Armed Forces have been bolstered for greater performance.

"The recapture of the once dreaded Sambisa forest by the Nigerian Military is also another good testimony of the victory over Boko Haram Insurgents that displaced over 2 million Nigerians from their towns and villages and resulted in the death of over 200,000 innocent Nigerians."

He said with the foregoing, the group believes that President Buhari deserves another term of four years in office for him to consolidate on his numerous achievements, especially the war against terrorism and corruption.

He said, "we also believe that the purposeful leadership provided by President Muhammdu Buhari has returned Nigeria to the path of progress once again.

"We also appreciate the Nigerian military and urge the Service Chiefs never to relent in defending the Sovereignty and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

"President Muhamadu Buhari has done excellently well, and it behooves on all well-meaning Nigerians to rise to the occasion and give him the much-needed support in the quest to take Nigeria to greater heights. He truly deserves a second term in office."             

JAMB: Civil Society Group Endorses Oloyede's Reforms



The Joint Action Coalition of Civil Society Organization for Transparency in Governance  has endorsed the on-going reforms and innovations introduced by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to ease admission into the nation's tertiary institutions, while also passing a vote of confidence on the leadership of the Board led by its Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede.

The groups said the innovations will deal with corruption in the educational sector and eradicate the problem of admission racketeering.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday in Abuja, Executive Director/Convener of the coalition,
Mr. Sabo Odeh condemned the recent attack on JAMB by ASUU, accusing the union of being allergic to reforms and innovations being introduced by JAMB under professor Oleyede

Odeh who was reacting to recent call by ASUU calling for the scrapping of JAMB the coalition has become aware of recent ploy by ASUU to hijack the tertiary education sector by ruse.

According to him the latest trick is via the instrumentality of calling for the scrapping of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). He the reforms introduced by JAMB into admission process in Nigeria appears to have taken many members of ASUU engaged in admission racketeering out of business and they are not happy.

He said, "If ASUU is allowed to dictate how JAMB does it work, it is a matter of time before the lecturers set their sight on WAEC, Secondary and even primary schools.

"The clamour by ASUU that each university should be allowed to handle its own admission processes is an open call to empower these admission syndicates operated by no other persons but ASUU members.
Heeding ASUU’s ill-conceived call would send us back to the problems that JAMB was set up to solve.

"In the years that preceded JAMB, it was common to see some candidates secure admission into as many as five universities which implies that four slots would we wasted as the student can only resume in one school while several other candidates are made to wait another year at home because these  slots have been wasted."

Odeh blamed ASSU for the decay in the education sector that the country is today grappling to remedy, saying the union has lost its moral compass and does not have the capacity to challenge the reforms being introduced by JAMB under professor Oleyede.

He accused the union of frustrating interventions that would re-establish Nigerian university as centre of excellence where youths can pass through and favourably compete with their contemporaries from any other top flight institutions on earth.

He however said Nigerians are now aware id their antics and will ensure that the progress made by JAMB under Prof Oleyede is sustained.

He said, "ASUU, as it did in the 90s, is giving the impression that it is genuinely interested in the wellbeing of would be undergraduates.

"We took time to study the situation with a view to ascertaining if ASUU’s intervention in the way JAMB conducts its major or mock examination is altruistic as they make it appear.

"Sadly, all that can be surmised from ASUU’s interference in this process is that they have resumed their efforts to hijack the education sector for their own purposes. Note that we say education sector because they have gone beyond their remit as higher institution teachers to dabble into academic levels that are outside their jurisdiction."

Has insisted that the reforms and innovations introduced by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) remains the best approach to ensure that only the best gets admitted into the nation's tertiary institutions.

He said, "The embrace of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), coupled with other policy direction has helped JAMB make changes that increased the admission chances of applicants.


"It has for instance streamlined the options of schools that candidates have based on careful analysis of trends. This innovation is also responsible for the curtailing of the way ASUU members used to manipulate admissions while side-lining JAMB."